Why is Nancy Mace's email in the Ashley Madison leak?
Cockburn ·
The Spectator's Washington gossip column 'Cockburn' reported that an old realtor-era email address belonging to Rep. Nancy Mace turned up in the searchable database from the 2015 Ashley Madison hack. The column is careful to note innocent explanations: Ashley Madison never verified email addresses at signup, so anyone could have entered hers, and it raises the possibility of a smear or a prank. Mace's office did not respond to requests for comment.
"Cockburn confirmed this week that the old realtor email of Congresswoman Nancy Mace was found on one such database.", The Spectator
The Spectator (US edition), "Cockburn" column, March 15, 2024
The Spectator's pseudonymous Washington gossip column "Cockburn" reported that an old realtor-era email address associated with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) was found in the searchable database created from the 2015 Ashley Madison hack. Ashley Madison is a dating website that markets itself to people seeking extramarital affairs; in 2015 hackers stole and published its full user database, which remains searchable today on third-party lookup sites the column names as Ashley.Cynic.Al and CheckAshleyMadison.com.
The column does not claim Mace herself created the account, and stresses the reasons the record proves little on its own:
"Now, there could be an innocent explanation for this. Perhaps anti-Mace activists registered her email address at the time in an attempt to smear her."
It also notes that Ashley Madison "did not require it to create an account," meaning any email address could be entered by anyone at signup without verification, and cites a Trump administration official who claimed he had made an account for "opposition research." In 2015 Mace was, in the column's words, "a businesswoman and author who had recently come in a distant fifth in a US Senate primary." She was married at the time and divorced her then-husband in 2019.
Cockburn wrote that a request for comment sent to the email drew only an auto-reply that it was "overwhelmed with messages," and that "subsequent requests for comment to both that email and to Mace's office have thus far gone unanswered." The item does not appear to have been independently corroborated or picked up by other outlets.
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