The cybertheft outfit announced that it had infiltrated the computer systems of a major entertainment law firm – Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks – in a post to the dark web on Friday, first reported by Page Six. Claiming to have mined a vast trove of documents on celebrities ranging from Madonna, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey, the hackers now say they have dirt on Trump.

“The next person we'll be publishing is Donald Trump. There's an election race going on, and we found a ton of dirty laundry,” the group said in the post, without elaborating on what information they might have on the president.

And to you voters, we can let you know that after such a publication, you certainly don't want to see him as president. Well, let’s leave out the details. The deadline is one week.

The ransom was initially set at $21 million on Thursday, but was doubled a day later when the money was not forthcoming. Though the law firm says it had not paid any of the sum demanded and is in contact with federal authorities, the hackers allege, without evidence, that they had already received $365,000 in relation to the attack.

“We have been informed by the experts and the FBI that negotiating with or paying ransom to terrorists is a violation of federal criminal law,” the firm said in a statement. “Even when enormous ransoms have been paid, the criminals often leak the documents anyway.”

Not content to leave the situation to fate, a number of Trump’s critics emerged from the woodwork to suggest that fellow #Resisters crowdfund the ransom themselves, hoping to leak the information – apparently not grasping that the hackers vowed to do precisely that with no payment at all.