Man Who Exposed Sext Scandal

The Daily Beast reports:

When reports first surfaced of a mysterious group of Twitter users who had been tracking Anthony Weiner’s apparent obsession with following young women, the story was filled with more questions than answers.

Who exactly were they?

A story by The New York Times that attempted to answer that question went something like this: For about three months prior to the crotch shot seen round the world, a conservative group of “cyberstalkers” patrolled Congressman Weiner’s Twitter account “with particular ferocity,” warning the young women he followed on Twitter to “be wary.” (Sample tweet: “Weiner’s new follow is a high school girl. LMAO! Freak!”)

Like many online collectives, the group was a random assortment of Twitter users who had never met in real life—a retired firefighter from Philadelphia, a mom in Wisconsin. On Twitter, they called themselves the #bornfreecrew, after the Kid Rock song “Born Free.”

The group first coalesced around Weiner’s tweets in March, but it was doing nothing more than teasing the congressman about his name. “Low hanging fruit we will call it,” says one member.

As time went on, the Crew became more of a social club, its members tweeting mundane messages as friends tend to do. But then things changed, as one member in particular began calling attention to Weiner’s affinity with following young women on the social network.

Then, in May, the Born Free Crew got wind of a brewing sex scandal (one member reportedly had ties to Matt Drudge, proprietor of the conservative media power site The Drudge Report). The scandal was said to involve “a ‘bigtime’ Congressman” and incriminating photos.

“@RepWeiner is it you?” one of the Born Free Crew asked the pol in a tweet. No one much noticed the Crew until the scandal exploded. The New York Times story thrust it into the spotlight, cementing its role in the narrative.

But in reality, say members of the Crew, it was only one member in particular who was especially interested in Weiner’s online activities: Dan Wolfe, or, as he was known on Twitter, @PatriotUSA76.

Wolfe was the person who ultimately helped bring the congressman’s Memorial Day weekend antics to light by retweeting the now-infamous shot of Weiner in his gray boxer briefs. And Wolfe was the one who shared the photo with conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who in turn broadcast it to his millions of readers and instantaneously turned a Twitpic into a major news story. But Wolfe, despite his instant notoriety, isn’t interested in attention. When reached by The Smoking Gun via email on June 1, he responded simply “Who gave you this email address? Private.”

Perhaps as a result of Wolfe’s reclusiveness, some members of the Born Free Crew feel they’ve been given more credit (or blame, depending on how you look at it) for their role in outing the congressman than they deserve.