WIRED Politics: Using Kofsky’s Social Media Account to Identify a Senator’s Video Account of Voting on the Internet

JD Vance [Archival audio]: I’ve even talked to people just in the past few days who’ve been able to order this stuff on the internet, comes directly to their door, and they’re dealing with a street drug that is substantially more powerful than what we give pregnant women in a hospital who are about to deliver a baby. This is potent for people to simply be able to order via mail. I want to start.

In one of the posts, Kofsky gave a number of other pieces of identifying information, including a video of Vance at a Senate hearing. That information, paired with a Poshmark account using the same username and an image of Kofsky as its avatar, were two of the big bread crumbs that helped me confirm Kofsky was behind the account.

It’s a different type of newsletter. Makena Kelly of WIRED Politics can help you understand how the internet is shaping our political reality.

Cryptocurrency Politico: Vance’s Crypto Policy (Stop, Biden, Harris), Trump, the Crypto Industry and the Trump Campaign

Kofsky isn’t just a random staffer; he is Vance’s financial policy adviser. It’s difficult to tell just how much influence Kofsky had on Vance’s crypto policy, but it was enough to warrant a short Politico profile praising him for it. From what I could tell from his X account (before he locked it yesterday), Kofsky held many of the same deregulatory positions as Vance and the crypto industry at large. Trump and Vance have both been given a thumbs up rating by the massive pro-Cryptocurrency super PAC, Stand With Cryptocurrencies. President Joe Biden gets a thumbs down while VPKamala Harris isn’t rated.

The campaign has taken in millions of dollars from coin holders. According to CNBC, the final Federal Election Commission deadline was Tuesday, and the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee’s filing says more than $6 million in donations were made in cryptocurrencies. The Trump campaign, Republican National Committee, state party committees are part of the joint committee. While the crypto donations are only a fraction of the $145 million total raised, the donations still show the growing influence of what was once a nascent industry.

The Harris campaign seems to have been spooked by the fact the industry clearly favors the Trump-Vance campaign. Harris is helping to protect Black men who have invested in these assets by formally announcing her support for the technology this week.

Leah Feiger: The tech ‘nuclear revolution’ is happening now, and why you should subscribe to WIRED Politics Lab

Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. Makena Kelly is @kellymakena. Tim Marchman is a person. Write to politicslab@ WIRED.com You should subscribe to the Politics Lab newsletter.

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Leah Feiger: The show is about how tech is changing politics. I work at WIRED as the senior politics editor. A user posted a video on January 31st called PsychoticMammal. It showed JD Vance in a senate hearing talking about the rising threat of synthetic drugs called nitazenes or manufactured opioids.