A prankster tricked Jared Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell into thinking he was Kushner – then made increasingly bizarre claims about having porn on email exchanges with White House officials.
The prankster, who uses the Twitter account @SINON_REBORN, fooled Lowell into discussing confidential business with his client by using the email address kushner.jared@mail.com, and reaching out for help about whether it’s okay to purge emails.
The prankster played off the timing of some real news: the discovery that Kushner and five other White House officials had used private email accounts.
Posing as Kushner, he wrote in an email that he had uncovered material of a ‘sensitive nature’ in his private account.
‘Namely: some exchanges with a website featuring adult content,’ he wrote.
RED LIGHT: Attorney Abbe Lowell (left) got tricked by a prankster posing as his client, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, under the ruse of an urgent request for legal advice about emails containing porn
‘Can I remove these?’ the prankster wanted to know.
‘Forwarded or received from WH officials?’ Lowell wanted to know.
The prankster reeled in Lowell, considered a top defense attorney, by stating that a single message came from a fellow White House employee.
‘I think one was forwarded from a White House official, we had discussed a shared interest of sorts,’ the prankster wrote. ‘It was unsolicited. Then there are a handful more, but not from officials.’
The Lowell proceeded to dispense legal advice, but in the process revealed that he apparently hasn’t read all of Kushner’s emails as of yet.
‘I need to see I think all emails between you and WH (just for me and us),’ he responded. ‘We need to send any officials emails to your WH account. Not stuff like you asked about. None of those are going anywhere,’ he reassured his client.
IS THERE WIRELESS HERE? The prankster posing as Kushner wanted to know about whether it was okay to delete an email from a White House official with a ‘shared interest’ in porn
‘Don’t delete. Don’t send to anyone. Let’s chat in a bit,’ Lowell wrote back
The prankster posted the exchange with Lowell on Twitter
‘But we can bury it?’ the prankster posing as Kushner wanted to know. ‘I’m so embarrassed. It’s fairly specialist stuff, half naked women on a trampoline, standing on legoscenes, the tag for the movie was #standingOnTheLittlePeople :(‘
‘Don’t delete. Don’t send to anyone. Let’s chat in a bit,’ Lowell wrote back, not flummoxed by the claim and offering what appears to be sound legal advice.
The prankster then made another outlandish claims. ‘There’s one more,’ the person wrote. ‘I’ll be SUNK if it’s found out. The protagonist of the piece looks exactly like a younger Hillary Clinton.’ Then, backing off, the prankster wrote: ‘Hair’s got more of a choppy fringe, though.
After Kushner’s private email use was revealed, Lowell issued a statement saying: ‘All non-personal emails were forwarded to his official address and all have been preserved in any event.’
The exchange, through the ruse, suggests that he made the statement without the benefit of seeing Kushner’s emails.
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told Business Insider he was ‘shocked to learn that Kushner’s lawyer did not review the relevant emails before issuing a statement making assertions about what was in them and how many there were.’
The same prankster was able to fool Ty Cobb, who is defending the Russia probe from the White House, by posing as White House head of social media Dan Scavino earlier this month.
At the end of that exchange, Cobb wrote that it is a felony to impersonate a government official.
White House attorney Ty Cobb also got tricked by the prankster