FBI arrests husband of Katie Hill’s 2018 fundraiser for cyber attack on her Democratic primary rivals

Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) is back in the news after the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested the husband of one of her former top staffers.

"Federal agents have arrested Arthur Dam in connection with a hacking spree that disrupted the 2018 Democratic California primary that ultimately nominated Katie Hill, according to a new criminal complaint," The Intercept reported Friday. "Dam, in the criminal complaint, is linked directly to the Hill campaign."

Hill was successful in the primary and went on to win the general election. She served in Congress for 10 months before being driven from office in a revenge porn blackmail scandal.

"Dam’s wife is Kelsey O’Hara, Hill’s fundraiser during the campaign and her district director after she won office," The Intercept reported. "In Hill’s FEC records, she lists a $500 in-kind contribution from Dam on March 25, 2018, for 'Graphic design and website security consultation.'"

"During the campaign, the websites of Hill’s opponents, Democrats Bryan Caforio and Jess Phoenix, were both attacked, though Hill’s never was, raising suspicions at the time that Hill’s campaign was behind them," the publication noted. "The FBI launched a probe that zeroed in on the Hill campaign in 2019, according to FBI correspondence reviewed by The Intercept."

The attacks crippled the campaign of Caforio, who told Rolling Stone that he is the victim named in the complaint.

"The FBI’s complaint says there is probable cause to believe that Arthur Dam carried out the four separate cyberattacks on Caforio’s website that took down the site at crucial moments in the closely contested primary," Rolling Stonereported. "The series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks crippled Caforio’s website for a combined 21 hours, according to the FBI complaint. One of the attacks happened right before a critical primary election debate; another took place just a week before the primary election vote. Caforio lost the primary to Hill by a few thousand votes."