George Bush's Family E-Mails Hacked.
George Bush's Family E-Mails Hacked.
(Reuters) - The Secret Service is investigating
the hacking of email accounts belonging to members of the Bush family that
divulged correspondence, addresses, phone numbers and a picture of a
self-portrait painted by former President George W. Bush standing in a shower.
A report on the Smoking Gun website, said the pilfered emails
provided a rare glimpse into the private lives of one of America's most
powerful political dynasties. The Bushes are only the second family in U.S.
history to send a father and son to the White House.
The website said a hacker known
as Guccifer raided the email accounts and posted the photos online. The
pictures include an image of former President George H.W. Bush, who was
released from a Houston hospital last month after seven weeks of treatment for
bronchitis and related ailments, in a hospital bed.
Another photo showed the elder
Bush, 88, posing outside a home with Bill Clinton, who was president between
the two Bushes.
The intercepted photos also
featured a portrait painted by George W. Bush of himself showering. It shows a
gray-headed man, nude from the waist up, regarding the viewer with Bush-like
features from the reflection in a shaving mirror. Another painting in the same
style shows a pair of legs in a bathtub.
"I really like the paintings
of George W. Bush," New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz wrote Friday.
Saltz, who normally reserves his
criticism for the likes of French painter Henri Matisse, found the president's
portraiture "wonderful, unself-conscious, intense."
Other photos showed Bush painting
a picture of a house and posing with a cut-out of himself in an artist's smock,
beret and mustache.
SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS HIT
The Smoking Gun site, known for
posting legal documents and arrest records related to celebrities, said the
hacker invaded six email accounts, including one belonging to Dorothy Bush
Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush, as well as other Bush family members and
friends.
The U.S. Secret Service is
investigating whether former President George H.W. Bush's email was hacked as
well, the agency said on Friday. A Bush family spokesman declined to comment.
Among the material that was
lifted were an October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers and
email addresses for the former presidents and other relatives, according to the
Smoking Gun.
The site said the emails revealed
that when the elder Bush was in poor health, George W. Bush wrote his siblings
the day after Christmas to say he was "thinking about eulogy."
"Hopefully I'm jumping the
gun," he said, "but since the feeling is that you all would rather me
speak than bubba, please help."
"Bubba" is a well-known
sobriquet for Clinton.
Since leaving office in 2009,
Bush has taken up painting portraits of Texas landscapes and dogs. He has live
a reserved life, largely hidden from view, with his wife, Laura, in Dallas.
Bush is likely to make a more
sustained return to the spotlight when his presidential library, located at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is completed and dedicated in April.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and
Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Doina Chiacu and Bill Trott)
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