U.S. Capitol Police on Wednesday said they arrested a former Democratic congressional staffer for publishing the personal information of at least one Republican senator during last week's hearing about sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Jackson Cosko, 27, has been charged with posting restricted personal information, witness tampering, threats in interstate communication, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, second-degree burglary, and unlawful entry, Fox News reported. Police said additional charges could be filed.
Cosko has been working as an intern for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas) and has been fired, according to Jackson Lee's chief of staff, Glenn Rushing.
"We're just cooperating with law enforcement right now," Rushing told Politico.
Cosko graduated from George Washington University in 2014 and previously worked for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D., N.H.), where he was a legislative correspondent, and for retired Democratic senator Barbara Boxer of California.
Media outlets reported last week that an unknown individual publicly leaked personal information of Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Mike Lee (Utah), and Orrin Hatch (Utah) on Thursday. Each of the targeted senators is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which on that same day questioned Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her when they were in high school in the early 1980s, in a day-long hearing. Kavanaugh has adamantly denied the accusation.
The leaked information, which included home addresses and phone numbers, was posted on the senators' Wikipedia pages, but was quickly removed. The home addresses seem to have been accurate, while most of the phone numbers were either disconnected or went to voicemail.
The edits were first noticed by Twitter bot @Congress-Edits, which keeps track of all the edits made to Wikipedia from IP addresses associated with the U.S. Congress.
U.S. Capitol Police reported that it arrested Cosko for posting the information of "about one or more United States senators to the Internet."
Cosko is due to appear in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday.