Updated 3 hours ago
The notorious self-described "email prankster" has struck again, and this time, his target revealed what may be next for the Trump administration's relationship with right-wing Breitbart News, according a report from CNN.
The person — who has previously created fake accounts that successfully tricked top White House officials, including former communications director Anthony Scaramucci — created an account posing as Steve Bannon, who left the administration last week and has reportedly returned to Breitbart.
The anonymous email prankster, who tweets under the name @SINON_REBORN and describes himself as a "lazy anarchist," has pulled a stunt like this. In July, the person fooled top White House officials into thinking he was other officials, causing a stir in the West Wing. At the time, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House was "looking into" the incidents.
From the fake Bannon account, the prankster emailed Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow on Sunday – prompting some very telling responses.
"Reading online about how i'll be bringing forth my wrath on Ivanka (Trump) and Jared (Kushner)," the fake Bannon account wrote, referring to the president's daughter and son-in-law, who are also senior advisers to Trump.
"I spooked em today," Marlow replied. "Did five stories on globalist takeover positioning you as the only hope to stop it."
Marlow then continued: "You need to own that, just have surrogates do the dirty work. Boyle, Raheem, me, Tony have been waiting for this." (Marlow appears to be referring to Washington editor Matthew Boyle, London editor Raheem Kassam and reporter Tony Lee.) Per CNN, the exchange also included a smear against Ivanka Trump – and the fake Bannon account replying, "So do you think you'll have them packed and shipping out before Christmas?"
Marlow replied: "Let me see what I can do... hard to know given your description of them as evil. I don't know what motivates them. If they are semi-normal, then yes, they out by end of year."
Marlow added: "You saying no admin is more divided is more important thing you said all weekend... let's talk about it in person."
The prankster also used the account to write Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollack.
"Had a good chat with Alex," the fake account wrote. "Seems he's already aligning the crosshairs and making me the masked puppeteer."
Pollack replied, "Excellent." He noted that he tried calling and then sent along his phone number.
Eventually, Breitbart realized that the emails were a trick, and its president and CEO sent a note to staffers.
"For the moment, please be careful of emails from this address," Larry Solov wrote in the company's Slack, according to CNN. "They are fake."
So why'd he trick Breitbart – and expose the emails exchanges?
The person, who has not been identified, told CNN: "It all seemed very duplicitous and littered with nuance and righteousness. I don't much care for the Trump administration or Breitbart so I didn't really do much but see what happened."
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