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Culture > News

A UK Email Prankster Fooled White House Officials, & It Was Too Easy

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Abby Piper

As if the stability of the White House wasn’t questionable enough, CNN reports that several White House officials have been duped by a self-described “email prankster” from the United Kingdom. Posing as White House officials, he emailed high level staff like Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert and the now-former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. 

He pretended to be Jared Kushner, AKA Ivanka’s husband and a senior staffer, and used an Outlook account to write to Bossert’s official government email, “Tom, we are arranging a bit of a soirĂ©e towards the end of August. It would be great if you could make it, I promise food of at least comparible [sic] quality to that which we ate in Iraq. Should be a great evening.” Shockingly, a man who deals with cyber security daily responded, “Thanks, Jared. With a promise like that, I can’t refuse. Also, if you ever need it, my personal email is (redacted).” So glad this is one of the men responsible for keeping our nation secure.

Scaramucci also fell prey to the trap, replying to an email by a fake former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus attempting to antagonize him. The message said, “At no stage have you acted in a way that’s even remotely classy, yet you believe that’s the standard by which everyone should behave towards you? General Kelly will do a fine job. I’ll even admit he will do a better job than me. But the way in which that transition has come about has been diabolical. And hurtful. I don’t expect a reply.”

Scaramucci took the bait and replied, “You know what you did. We all do. Even today. But rest assured we were prepared. A Man would apologize,” to which the phony Priebus responded, “I can’t believe you are questioning my ethics! The so called ‘Mooch’, who can’t even manage his first week in the White House without leaving upset in his wake. I have nothing to apologize for.” Scaramucci finished with some English lit knowledge. “Read Shakespeare. Particularly Othello. You are right there. My family is fine by the way and will thrive. I know what you did. No more replies from me.” End scene.

According to the prankster’s Twitter, he’s tricked Scaramucci a whopping three times (like, how?) and also had a conversation with Eric Trump as Donald Trump Jr. 

None of the emails seem to pose a threat right now, but this incident does show how vulnerable the current administration is to potential security breaches. The prankster told CNN he didn’t mean any harm with his pranks. “I try and keep it on the humorous side of things,” he told CNN. “I’m not trying to get the keys to the vault or anything like that.” On his Twitter, he also said he’d lay off the White House. 

Yeah, it does raise a lot of questions about the competency of the government. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next email scandal. Knowing current American politics, it will probably be next week. What a time to be alive. 

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Abby Piper

Notre Dame

Abby is a senior studying English, French and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame but remains obsessed with her hometown St. Louis. She loves running, water skiing, writing, watching Christmas movies all year long and The O.C.'s Seth Cohen.