THE PROGRAMMER BEHIND THE TRIAL VIDEOS: “Use those skills for good”

Much of the video footage presented by House impeachment managers in former President Trump’s Senate trial was downloaded from Parler by an anonymous programmer before the platform went offline.

Amazon Web Services in January pulled its hosting support for Parler, the social media platform favored by many on the far right, amid reports it had been used to coordinate the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The programmer, who downloaded about 30 terabytes of video, told CNN she “had an efficient way to download it all. I knew what was there, but it seemed that nobody else could see the value.”

The programmer, who uses the Twitter name @donk_enby, told the network that she hoped the use of her downloads at Trump’s trial “inspires more people with similar skills to mine to use those skills for good.” She told CNN she is not based in the U.S. and all of the videos were publicly accessible before Parler went offline.