The U.S. Secret Service is investigating the hacking of email accounts
belonging to members of the Bush family that divulged correspondence,
addresses, phone numbers and a picture of a self-portrait painted by
former President George W. Bush standing in a shower.
A report on the
Smoking Gun website, said the pilfered emails
provided a rare glimpse into the private lives of one of America's most
powerful political dynasties. The Bushes are only the second family in
U.S. history to send a father and son to the White House.
The
website said a hacker known as Guccifer raided the email accounts and
posted the photos online. The pictures include an image of former
President George H.W. Bush, who was released from a Houston hospital
last month after seven weeks of treatment for bronchitis and related
ailments, in a hospital bed.
Another photo showed the elder Bush, 88, posing outside a home with Bill Clinton, who was president between the two Bushes.
The
intercepted photos also featured a portrait painted by George W. Bush
of himself showering. It shows a gray-headed man, nude from the waist
up, regarding the viewer with Bush-like features from the reflection in a
shaving mirror. Another painting in the same style shows a pair of legs
in a bathtub.
"I really like the paintings of George W. Bush," New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz wrote Friday.
Saltz,
who normally reserves his criticism for the likes of French painter
Henri Matisse, found the president's portraiture "wonderful,
unself-conscious, intense."
Other photos showed Bush painting a
picture of a house and posing with a cut-out of himself in an artist's
smock, beret and mustache.
Six email accounts hit
The
Smoking Gun site, known for posting legal documents and arrest records
related to celebrities, said the hacker invaded six email accounts,
including one belonging to Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W.
Bush, as well as other Bush family members and friends.
The U.S.
Secret Service is investigating whether former President George H.W.
Bush's email was hacked as well, the agency said on Friday. A Bush
family spokesman declined to comment.
Among the material that was
lifted were an October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers
and email addresses for the former presidents and other relatives,
according to the Smoking Gun.
The site said the emails revealed
that when the elder Bush was in poor health, George W. Bush wrote his
siblings the day after Christmas to say he was "thinking about eulogy."
"Hopefully I'm jumping the gun," he said, "but since the feeling is that you all would rather me speak than bubba, please help."
"Bubba" is a well-known sobriquet for Clinton.
Since
leaving office in 2009, Bush has taken up painting portraits of Texas
landscapes and dogs. He has live a reserved life, largely hidden from
view, with his wife, Laura, in Dallas.
Bush is likely to make a
more sustained return to the spotlight when his presidential library,
located at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is completed and
dedicated in April.
© Thomson Reuters 2013