This story was picked up by USAtoday as well as at least
one other news outlet with the exact same wording (maybe delivered by some unknown news agency?). Its a quite unbiased article that points out all the curious facts of bitcoin's recent high profile case (except that bitcoins are worth 11$ each now):
Michael Brown of Franklin, Tenn., says he cannot explain why the Secret Service is targeting him in the alleged hacking of Mitt Romney's tax returns, but he says he is innocent.
Craig Ball, an attorney and certified computer forensic examiner in Austin, Texas, noted that authorities can use the serial numbers from the two flash drives left at the political offices in Williamson County. The drives themselves won't likely reveal much, but computers keep a log of all the external storage devices ever plugged into them. That means, Ball said, that investigators are looking for a record of those flash drives having been used on the machines confiscated from Brown's home.
Several years ago Brown paid $5,000 to acquire about 371,000 bitcoins and, according to a 2011 article in Wired magazine, was the "richest man in in the bitcoin realm".
Brown acknowledged the circumstantial connection but said that, after the value of bitcoins tanked, he created another form of digital currency to compete with bitcoin. Why would he demand payment in a digital currency that competes with his own? Brown countered."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2012/11/12/romney-tax-returns-hacker/1699075/
