WASHINGTON, Iowa 鈥� Democratic presidential hopeful acknowledged his involvement with a hacking group during a campaign trip in Iowa on Friday.
It was something 鈥渢hat I was part of as a teenager, not anything that I鈥檓 proud of today,鈥� O鈥橰ourke, 46, told reporters in Iowa. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the long and short of it.鈥�
According to a story first published in on Friday morning, in the 1980s O鈥橰ourke was a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow, a group known for coining the term 鈥渉acktivism鈥� and releasing tools that allowed less tech-savvy users to hack computers running Microsoft鈥檚 Windows operating system.
翱鈥橰辞耻谤办别,&苍产蝉辫; on Thursday after months of speculation, previously told reporters in Washington that he hadn鈥檛 seen the Reuters article.
The story says O'Rourke wrote online essays using the pseudonym "Psychadelic Warlord;" one essay, written when he was 15, was a piece of short fiction from the point of view of a killer who runs over two children with a car.
鈥淎s I neared the young ones, I put all my weight on my right foot, keeping the accelerator pedal on the floor until I heard the crashing of the two children on the hood, and then the sharp cry of pain from one of the two," the story reads. "I was so fascinated for a moment, that when after I had stopped my vehicle, I just sat in a daze, sweet visions filling my head.鈥�
According to Reuters, fellow members of the hacking group kept O鈥橰ourke鈥檚 involvement a secret for years 鈥� including during his Senate race against in 2018.
O'Rourke is the second Texan to enter the race, joining former San Antonio mayor and U.S. housing secretary .
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