Of Course This Is How the Intelligence Leak Happened

In the summer of 2017, an anonymous tipster informed me of a small network of online propagandists orchestrating troll campaigns and creating memes to support Donald Trump. They gathered on Discord, a text-, voice-, and video-chat platform popular with gamers. I signed up and lurked on their server, observing various green-frog and American-flag avatars hurling insults, posting rudimentary Photoshops of Trump, and daydreaming about undertaking outrageous missions such as trying to infiltrate CNN’s New York headquarters.

Initially, the posts unnerved me, but there was also something unserious about them—an oblivious, naive enthusiasm coupled with a grand delusion that their pixelated memes had fully shifted the political landscape. The reason for the bluster was quickly made clear when one of the server’s most prolific posters apologetically told his comrades that he’d be stepping away from his duties for the foreseeable future: His parents were