Sarah Palin Testifies In Knoxville As The FBI Details An Elaborate Coverup By Defendant In The E-Mail Hacking Case

Sarah Palin was in Knoxville Friday morning giving testimony in the trial against David Kernell, the son of longtime Tennessee democrat legislator Big Mike Kernell, who is charged with hacking into her e-mail account during the 2008 presidential campaign.

From the Associated Press:

Sarah Palin testified Friday about the disruption and hurt caused when her e-mail account was hacked during the 2008 presidential campaign and said outside court that there should be consequences for what happened.


She declined to say if she thinks conviction of the 22-year-old defendant should lead to prison or if community service would be punishment enough. "That’s up to the judge," she said when she stopped to talk to reporters outside the courthouse.


Former University of Tennessee student David Kernell, the 22-year-old son of a Democratic state lawmaker, is charged with hacking the Yahoo! e-mail account as Palin campaigned in 2008 as the Republican vice presidential candidate.


Kernell faces up to 50 years in federal prison if convicted of identity theft, mail fraud and two other felony charges. His lawyer has said the case is a prank and Kernell had no criminal intent.


Asked outside the courtroom if she thought the charges against Kernell were excessive, Palin said, "I don’t know, but I do think there should be consequences for bad behavior."


As Palin walked to the witness stand, some jurors smiled at her. The first question from Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle was, "May I call you Governor Palin?"


The former Alaska governor smiled almost constantly through 30 minutes of testimony as she told jurors about the disruption the hacking caused for her family and close friends when their e-mails and phone numbers were publicized on the Internet.


The posting of family photos and e-mails on the web fueled rumors that Palin and her husband had affairs and that her youngest child, Trig, was not really her son, she said in court.


Palin's husband, Todd, sat in the courtroom as she testified. Their daughter, Bristol, told jurors earlier this week that she got harassing calls and text messages after screen shots of e-mail from the account revealed her cell phone number. A former Palin aide also described receiving vulgar e-mails.


Kernell isn't accused of the harassment, but prosecutors say he broke into Palin's e-mail account in September 2008 by correctly providing her birth date and ZIP code and correctly answering that she met her husband in Wasilla, Alaska.


Kernell's attorney, Wade Davies, argued the password was obtained using information that was publicly available, including where she met her husband.


"It wasn't a secret to me," Palin said. "I don't know if the rest of the world knew it or not."


After the e-mail was hacked, prosecutors said Kernell bragged about it in obscenity-laced Internet postings. An FBI computer forensics specialist and other witnesses testified about photos of the Palin children and a reference to Bristol as "the prego one."

You can read more and see more video here.

Sarah  talked to the media after testifying:

Stacy Drake has coverage of Sarah’s appearance with Greta Van Susteren where Sarah discusses the trial as well as the tough new Arizona law against illegal immigration. You can see that here.

Meanwhile, an FBI computer forensics expert, Agent Stephen McFall, testified before the court on Thursday about the lengths Kernell went through to cover up his crime.

The FBI probe was stymied by a series of steps authorities allege defendant David Kernell took to cover his tracks, including deleting from the computer material gleaned from Palin's account, clearing his Internet history on one web browser, uninstalling another browser and running a Windows tool designed to speed a computer up by overwriting space occupied by deleted files.

A while back we wrote there was a lot more to this case than just some dumb college kid messing around. David Kernell was most definitely looking for a political advantage he could then pass on to the Obama campaign. It must be noted that his father, again a long time Tennessee legislator, was a very active member of the Obama campaign’s Tennessee team.

Most will remember this crime occurred at the same time noted Palin stalker, and cleavage monitor, Andree McLeod, was working overtime trying to get the courts to give her access to the very same e-mail account that Kernell successfully hacked. McLeod was soon joined by the "Official DNC Blogger for Alaska" and Alaska Mafia © member, Linda Kellen Biegel who, in a separate effort, used questionable methods to raise money in an scheme to gain access to the account and it’s contents.

McLeod, Biegel, and other operatives from the Obama regime alleged that Sarah was using her personal Yahoo account to conduct official state business. Despite multiple filings of bogus ethics complaints by McLeod, who continues to file, now against former Palin staff, the ethics boards and courts have all sided With Sarah. Doesn’t stop the crazies from trying though. And make no mistake about it, these are some world class crazies.

The sweet irony in all of this is the fact that Kernell, by illegally gaining access and illegally publishing the contents of Sarah’s account all over the world wide web, has made Sarah’s case for her, and proven there was nothing questionable about her personal e-mail account. No state business was conducted on her personal account, as alleged.

From Reagan to Palin:

* A forensic probe of the computer a University of Tennessee student allegedly used to illegally snoop through former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account presented jurors Thursday with a study in contrasts.

* David C. Kernell deleted everything he took from the account but left intact what amounted to a confession of his foray into the account.

* He posted a password on an Internet discussion site and urged others to use it but minutes later tried to block them from doing so and declared himself a "dip (expletive)" for making the password public.

*He "defragmented" the hard drive, which served to overwrite some deleted information, but never sought to reformat it, which would have effectively wiped it clean.

Jurors in the Federal courtroom on Thursday took a journey via FBI Agent Stephen McFall’s forensic autopsy through the computer activity on Kernell’s laptop in September 2008 when the then 20-year-old UT economics major allegedly managed to Google his way past Yahoo! security measures and change the password on Palin’s private account to get inside it.

At the time, Palin had been tapped as running mate to Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign, and national media were alleging Palin used the private e-mail account to keep gubernatorial business from the public’s prying eyes.

Federal prosecutors Greg Weddle and Mark Krotoski on Thursday zeroed in on one of four felony charges Kernell faces – obstruction of the FBI’s probe. They sent Kernell friend Benjamin Reed to the witness stand to recount how Kernell worried the FBI was on his trail and openly pondered the merits of reformatting his hard drive.

But the crux of their obstruction case came from testimony by McFall, a computer expert so skilled he was tapped to help organize the FBI’s elite Computer Analysis and Response Team, or CART.

McFall said his probe was stymied by a series of steps authorities allege Kernell took to cover his tracks, including deleting from the computer material gleaned from Palin’s account, clearing his Internet history on one Web browser, uninstalling another browser and running a Windows tool designed to speed a computer up by overwriting space occupied by deleted files.

"Uninstalling (software) and deleting a bunch of files and photos, then defragmenting, makes it a whole lot (tougher)" to reconstruct whatever evidence the laptop contained, he said.

But McFall did get a probe assist from an unexpected source – a nasty virus hiding on the used laptop Kernell’s aunt and uncle gave him to use in his UT studies. "It’s designed to collect a lot of different data (including) banking and finance data," he said. The "malware" created a log of much of Kernell’s Internet activity, he said. "The log file was capturing, almost like a surveillance camera, the activities that were going on," he said.

Prosecutors used McFall’s testimony to paint a portrait of a self-described "Obamacrat" bent on derailing the Republican campaign who tried to cover his tracks when the illegal access went public. But defense attorney Wade Davies used it to try to advance his contention the high-profile e-mail compromise was nothing more than a college prank spurred by curiosity and carried out by an immature student with less-than-savvy computer skills.

For instance, Davies noted in cross-examination that Kernell did not delete a draft of an Internet post in which he boasted of the ease with which he cracked the account. "I am the (discussion board) lurker who did it, and I would like to tell the story," the file read.

Davies also pointed out that minutes after Kernell posted the new password he set for the account on that same discussion board, McFall’s laptop probe shows he tried to change it again in an effort so frantic he made a series of sloppy mistakes that kept him from doing so. He also highlighted to jurors a Facebook chat with Reed in which Kernell wrote that he "posted the pass(word) like a dip (expletive)."

Make no mistake about it, what this kid has done is no less serious than the Watergate break-in. While no physical buildings were broke into, the results were the same, this kid accessed Sarah’s personal files in an attempt to derail the McCain-Palin presidential campaign.

Worse yet, thanks to the actions of this loser, many of Sarah’s staff and friends, as well has her family, had their lives disrupted, and their secrets published for the whole world to see. This was an incredible violation of Sarah’s life and the lives of those close to her. .

Kernell, if convicted is facing as many as 50 years in prison. Some may find that harsh. Let me remind you: G.Gordon Liddy was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $40,000 fine for his part in the Watergate affair, and he wasn’t even one of those who actually broke into the DNC offices.

I doubt Kernell will get 50 years, but a strong sentence is needed in a case like this to send a message to others who would attempt this sort of nonsense. It’s just sad that no one is pursuing the connection to the Obama regime. This could very well be Obama’s Watergate.

Sarah Palin Expected To Testify At Knoxville Trial Of Obama Campaign Operative Who Hacked Her E-mail Account

Could This Be Barack Obama’s Watergate?

There have been so many dirty tricks orchestrated by Barack Obama, his staffers, minions, sycophants, and so on,....against Sarah Palin....that frankly we forgot about this loser until our friends over at Palin TV linked to this story out of Tennessee:

Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is expected to be a witness at a University of Tennessee student’s internet fraud trial next month.

A motions hearing Wednesday addressed several procedural issues U.S. District Judge Clifford Shirley expects to rule on at a pre-trial conference in two weeks.

University of Tennessee student David Kernell, now 22, is accused of accessing Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) while she was Sen. John McCain’s running mate. Palin was governor at the time.

Prosecutors contend Kernell answered some security questions, like Palin’s date of birth and where she met her spouse, then reset her password.

He’s accused of posting the new password on the internet so others could look at her e-mail account.

He faces four felonies: identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, and obstruction of justice.

If convicted on counts two and four of the indictment, Kernell faces a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and 5 years of supervised release.

If convicted on counts one and three of the new indictment, Kernell faces a maximum punishment of 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and 3 years of supervised release.

One of the issues discussed at Wednesday’s hearing was whether the defense can serve trial subpoenas by Fed Ex or email instead of in person.

Defense attorney Wade Davies said, "There are people all over the country, including in Alaska, who are involved in this case."

Kernell’s defense attorney, Wade Davies, told Judge Clifford Shirley he may consider a so-called 12.2 defense. While Davies declined to elaborate, usually that means the intent to call expert witnesses to talk about a defendant’s mental condition.

The judge summed up a third issue the defense brought up: "Does the court have authority to issue an out of district search warrant?" Judge Shirley said. His ruling on that question could exclude some evidence in the case.

Kernell remains free until trial as long as he meets certain conditions, including using a computer only for class work.

David Kernell’s trial is set for April 20.

His father is a longtime Democratic State Senator from Memphis.

SOURCE: WBIR

Now don’t weep for this weasel, he is connected as high as they can go. His father is Mike Kernell, a longtime Tennessee State Representative, and a democrat, of course. More importantly though, David, who is a student at the University of Tennessee appears to have ties to the highest levels of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. More on this in a second, but first lets take a stroll down memory lane.

Our friends over at HillBuzz were all over this at the time:

Like father, like son.

According to some great online detective work today, it seems SoetorObama supporter Mike Kernell, Democrat state representative from Tennessee (and active member of SoetorObama’s Tennessee campaign), confirmed his son David Kernell, student at University of Tennessee-Knoxville, hacked into Sarah Palin’s yahoo email account to help SoetorObama’s struggling campaign.

Kernell hoped to find political information he could pass to the SoetorObama camp, or anything he could embarrass Palin with by posting all over the Internet. It was his intent to neutralize Palin or force her off the ticket by finding damaging personal information that would win the election for SoetorObama.

[...]

Kernell hacked Palin’s email by patiently tricking Yahoo to give up Palin’s password: he answered repetitive security questions about Palin’s birthday, zip code, etc. until Yahoo allowed him into Palin’s account. Then, he changed Palin’s password to "popcorn". Get it? David Kernell…"popcorn". What a clever, clever boy!

Clever boys with doe-eyes and Boticelli curls do really well serving 1-4 years in federal prison for cybercrimes, we hear.

Word to the wise: if you are using Yahoo for email, you might want to switch to something more secure. If Kernell was able to hack into Palin’s account using public-knowledge about her, just imagine what someone who actually knows you could do to your own account. If you have an ex who wants to spy on you, he or she would know a lot more about you than Kernell knew about Palin, so hacking your account should be a lot easier for him/her. And for crying out loud, stop using your dog’s name as your password. It’s the first thing people try when hacking.

Something to think about…in addition to the fact that, like we have said for a year, the people SoetorObama attracts to his campaign are very similar to the type of thugs McGovern attracted in 1972. Though these people are not operating on direct orders from SoetorObama himself, the spirit of his campaign encourages this type of behavior, and prompts people like Kernell to commit what looks like three separate felonies in service of their ObaMessiah.

You can read a lot more from the Boys From Chicago here.

Terry Frank was all over this at the time and managed to get a lot of screen shots from the G.Gordon Liddy wannabe’s Facebook page. You can read more here.

As you read, you will notice commenter after commenter start referencing young David’s Technorati page and the fact that there appears to be more than a tenuous connection between David and Barack Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe.


In fact, a quick look though multiple sources will find references to this, and include a link:

http://www.technorati.com/search/%22david+kernell%22?authority=a4&language=en

Unfortunately, either Kernell or Technorati have scrubbed the website, and nothing on our master spy can be found. But, as luck would have it, the folks over at Libertarian Republican captured a screen shot:




Eric Dondero writes this for the website:

In another bizarre twist to the Sarah Palin email hacking story, the prime suspect in the FBI investigation David Kernell of Tennessee, had a video produced by Barack Obama for President Campaign Manager David Plouffe on his Technorati Search Page.

Libertarian Republican blog interviewed Computer Applications Specialist Dave Kittley of Abilene, Texas this evening. Kittley discovered the video link late yesterday, and captured it in a screen shot. (The black pen markings on the screenshot are from Kittley).

Kittley asserts that it is a very strange coincidence that the Plouffe video would show up right on Kernell's Technorati page. One possible explanation according to Kittley: Kernell's name might be in the credits for the production of the Plouffe video.

Plouffe is known to be a big advocate of NetRoots, a gathering of Leftwing Bloggers, formerly known as Yearly Kos, who often engage in on-line mischief against political opponents. Obama produced a personal video to the NetRoots convention which was held in Austin, Texas the weekend of July 16. Kittley told LR that is entirely possible that Kernell might be a member of the NetRoots community.

Kittlery also pointed out to LR that the video, which encourages volunteers to become the "cavalry" of the Obama campaign, has since dissappeared from Kernell's Technorati page. He has the screen shot in his possession, and has graciously made the screenshot from yesterday available to LR and to a limited number of websites covering the Palin email hacking story.

Although there was a lot of effort to scrub things, thanks to the folks at Free Republic, we found the INCREDIBLY boring video of Plouffe rallying the troops. The one referenced on Kernell’s Technorati page:







That’s five minutes and forty-four seconds of my life I will never get back. This is the most boring man alive!

You’ll notice the video was posted about the time young David was violating Governor Palin’s privacy.

Obviously, there was a lot of reporting on this, at least on the conservative side of the aisle. Predictably, the Obamacentric "mainstream media" ran from this story like it was on fire!

If you want to go down memory lane though, Gateway Pundit and the National Ledger have more.

As if this wasn’t interesting enough, David’s father, Big Mike Kernell is running for re-election at the same time his loser son is about to go on trial. His opponent, Memphis police officer Tim Cook, had this to say:

"When I heard the rumor that Mike Kernell's son was the one responsible for hacking into the Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin's email I was stunned. As a father I sympathize with Mike Kernell and can understand what he is going through as a father. And I will pray for him and his family during this ordeal.

However, this clearly shows what family values Democrat Mike Kernell has taught his children. It reflects the values of his 34 years as a State Representative in and for the Democratic Party. These are not the type of values the citizens want in their representatives. ..."

Officer Cook went on to suggest a possible media conspiracy to ignore the alleged relationship between David Kernell and Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Ya think?

This is rather delicious to me, as it was just yesterday we started discussing the diabolical plans Obama has to scuttle Sarah Palin’s natural gas pipeline project, the largest construction project on North American history.

We took readers down memory lane and reminded them how Obama, his Senate (and campaign) Chief-of-Staff Pete Rouse, and a cast of Alaskan nerdowells went on a jihad against Sarah Palin the day she was announced as John McCain’s running mate.

We talked about the fact that Obama, personally got involved in the so-called "Troopergate" scandal, Sarah calls it "Tasergate" because her crazy brother-in-law had tasered her nephew, among just a few things. Obama is the one who called the state troopers union to "offer his assistance" to a brother union member.

We also talked about the fact that even though Sarah was cleared, and democrats Kim Elton, Hollis French, Beth Kerttula, Stephen Branchflower, and others were taken to the wood shed for hiding evidence that cleared Palin, and even used the wrong statute as the basis for their witch hunt, Barack Obama "rewarded" Kim Elton with a make work job at the Department of Interior. A little Chicago style pay-for-play.

Of course, no discussion of this fine group of individuals would be complete without reminding everyone that Pete Rouse, now a Senior White House adviser, basically founded, recruited, and coordinated the Alaska Mafia from his cushy D.C. office. Rouse used Mafia members to continually plant false stories about Sarah Palin in the media, as well as continually file all of those phony ethics complaints against her, complaints that would cost the Alaska tax payers over $2 million to deal with.

To this day, if you see a story about Sarah Palin that come from far left hate sites like the Huffington Post (which are then picked up by the "mainstream media") just know that Rouse, or one of his people has something to do with it. That’s how these people roll.

You can refresh your memory on all of this, and see what Obama’s latest gimmick is here.

You know, at the time it was all happening, naive Americans, like myself, thought for sure that the pay-for-play deal between Obama and Kim Elton, for Elton’s part in the false accusations against Sarah Palin, in an attempt to throw the election, who have been enough to take Obama down.

As we learned more about the Chicago thug politics, and Obama’s connection to the Alaska Mafia, we felt for certain someone in authority would step in. We were just that naive.

Now, as I finish this up I reflect on the fact that progressives, like Barack Obama, and his ilk, scream bloody murder when we lawfully wiretap terrorists who want to destroy America.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the act that finally brings down the most corrupt president in American history is the illegal tapping into Sarah Palin’s e-mails on his behalf!

Talk about being hoisted by one’s own petard!