I don't understand why someone would think that this would work. The person who hacked into Palin's personal email account didn't even find anything interesting

I don't understand why someone would think that this would work. The person who hacked into Palin's personal email account didn't even find anything interesting and he was sentenced to a year in prison (some of it was served in a halfway house). A person who attempts to blackmail a politician for $1 million is probably going to prison for a couple of decades.