Pro-Trump group takes down website after hack: report
A Republican super PAC promoting President Trump’s Cabinet nominees took down its website after it was hit by hackers Monday, according to a new report.
The hackers changed sections of the 45 Committee’s homepage to mock Trump and his Cabinet picks, CNN said.
A spokesman for the group — which was founded by GOP mega-donors Sheldon Adelson and Todd Ricketts — confirmed the website’s hacking Monday to CNN.
{mosads}Hackers renamed one section “Make America S—-y Again,” the group said, and wrote “Black Lives Matter” across the website’s video portion.
A commercial in support of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, was relabeled “Steve Bannon is a White Supremacist.”
Bannon, who is Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, has faced criticism for his past role as chairman of Breitbart News.
Critics have accused Breitbart of serving as a platform for the alt-right, a movement they argue promotes white nationalism, misogyny and anti-Semitism.
CNN also reported that another 45 Committee spot touting Trump’s attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), was retitled “Sessions is Too Racist to be a Federal Judge.”
Sessions failed to be confirmed as a federal judge in 1986 after former colleagues accused him of making racially insensitive remarks. Sessions, though, has fiercely denied those claims.
The 45 Committee has spent more than $4 million so far on broadcast and online ads praising Trump’s Cabinet nominees, according to CNN.
The group has also been on a hiring spree since Trump won the presidency, the report added, and is anticipated to play a major role throughout his administration.
Monday’s hack comes as Senate Democrats are planning a rare all-night talkathon to protest Betsy DeVos’s nomination for Education secretary before an expected vote Tuesday.
“Democrats will hold the floor for the next 24 hours, until the final vote, to do everything we can to persuade just one more Republican to join us,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said from the Senate floor Monday.
No Democrat is expected to back DeVos, and GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) said last week they will not vote for her.
Vice President Pence will likely need to break a 50-50 tie to confirm DeVos unless a crucial third Republican senator helps torpedo her confirmation Tuesday.
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