Could definitely be a hacking job.
Years ago, I knew computer geeks who could hack as easily as they took a breath.
Imagine how adept hackers are today!
The problem is that as soon as the good computer guys create antivirus, etc., the bad guys figure out a way to hack thru.
One of my friends would deliberately let his computer crash from a virus so that he could figure out how to get rid of the virus and
restore his files.

The more we look into it, it definitely looks like a smear job

Could it be that someone is attacking his account? This sounds too much like a left-liberal attack.

The more we look into it, it definitely looks like a smear job