Secret Service Investigating Purported Ransom of Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns

[cali]

Someone claims to have stolen years of Mitt Romney’s tax returns from a Tennessee office of the financial firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Secret Service is investigating what appears to be a ransom scheme.

The local Democratic and Republican parties in Williamson County, Tenn., where the PricewaterhouseCoopers office is located, both received packages, each containing a thumb drive and a letter outlining a competitive-bidding ransom scheme that appears designed to pit Republicans and Democrats against each other over the release of Romney’s taxes.

The letters stated an intention to publish Romney’s tax returns on Sept. 28, unless $1 million is deposited in a Bitcoin (Internet currency) account, according to Williamson County Democratic Party Chairman Peter Burr, who said both he and his Williamson County GOP counterpart received similar packages.

The Secret Service took the package from him after the local GOP contacted authorities, Burr said. The Secret Service confirmed to ABC News that it is investigating the ransom scheme.

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/secret-service-investigating-purported-ransom-of-mitt-romneys-tax-returns/

[CoffeeCat]

1. Wow, wouldn't that be something...

...if those tax returns got out and went public?

Holy buckets that would be astounding.

This was a crazy thing to do and I can't believe someone thought they could pull off such a stunt without criminal repercussions.

What was Karl Rove thinking? hehe

[Politicalboi]

2. They never should have mentioned a ransom

Just let it flowwwwwwwwww.

[drm604]

3. Okay, so now ABC is reporting this.

I was skeptical of the articles in "Nashville City Paper" and a pastebin post doesn't prove anything, but now physical packages have been delivered and ABC news is reporting it.

I'm still skeptical that someone actually has the returns, but there seems to be more going on here than just some kid posting something in pastebin.

[drm604]

4. The ABC page is gone.

Suddenly it's just an error page. Hmm...

On Edit: Now it's back.

[C_U_L8R]

5. I don't believe this for a second

Sounds like Rove

[cynatnite]

6. Cali, what is this?

http://pastebin.com/1j1yzQ9S

I came across it a little while ago.

[DeSwiss]

7. They should check those thumbdrives and envelopes for pimp hat feathers......

[flamingdem]

8. Watch them get released and be SQUEAKY CLEAN (but fake)

Romney is down in the polls. This could be a Rove trap.

Where is that It's a Trip Picture?

[Kablooie]

10. Or if the real taxes are released....

a very similar but squeaky clean version will appear at the same time.

This could be foiled by the hackers right now by releasing an encrypted version now and just release the decrypt password to release the info.

The only way a fake clean version could compete is if it were released, encrypted at about the same time.
It would have a later release date than the original though so it still might not be effective.

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. When I first saw this ...

I thought: "Wow ... Probably not a good idea to attempt to extort a major party nominee for the POTUS post. Somebody's gonna come looking for you."

But that said, what is "squeaky clean" in this argument? Paying 10-15% on 100s of millions of income would be as damaging as not.