Cellphone numbers and home addresses of Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were posted online Thursday as they questioned Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The personal information was inserted into the Wikipedia pages about Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah, and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Politico reported. The changes were made beginning shortly after 5 p.m., just as each senator questioned Kavanaugh during his defense against Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation.
The doxxing was immediately picked up by congress-edits, the social media accountability bot that monitors Wikipedia edits from computer IP addresses assigned to the Capitol. The Wiki profiles of the senators were reported as “edited anonymously from the U.S. House of Representatives,” congress-edits said in a tweet. The changes were automatically tweeted to some 65,000 followers of congress-edits.
A spokesman for Hatch said the personal information, which was quickly deleted, was accurate.
“It’s shocking that someone would post Senator Hatch and other Judiciary Committee Republicans’ home addresses online, putting their families at risk,” spokesman Matt Whitlock told The Washington Post. “That it happened as they were asking questions in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing is just another indication of how broken this process has become.”
Not all of the information was accurate. A number listed as a home phone for Graham was actually the number for an LGBTQ advocacy organization, the Post reported.
White House spokesman Raj Shab called the doxxing “outrageous.”
Capitol police were notified, Gizmodo reported.
Changes also were made Thursday to the Wikipedia page on “The Devil’s Triangle,” a phrase that appeared in Kavanaugh’s entry in his high school yearbook. He testified it referred to a “drinking game.” The term also refers to threesomes. The Wiki change added: “Devil’s Triangle: A popular drinking game enjoyed by the friends of Judge Kavanaugh.”
The Wikipedia entry for “interns” was also edited to add: “Interns who doxx U.S. Senators they’re butthurt about instead of getting the coffee they should be fetching. Chop chop.”
The Wikipedia page for U.S. Congress also was anonymously edited, to note: “Wikipedia should block all congressional IPs if some little rich-boy socialist interns can’t be responsible online.”
Graham was doxxed in 2015 by then-candidate Donald Trump, who recited Graham’s cellphone number during a campaign event.