New questions arise about FBI probe into ‘Russian’ election-year hacking as it’s revealed they never asked to examine Democratic Party’s server
FBI never asked Democratic National Committee for a look at the computer server the government now claims was hacked by Russian state actors
Instead a private security company was allowed to probe the device
‘There’s just no way to be sure the FBI was making decisions based on solid evidence,’ a Republican Senate aide said
‘You can get the same tools from the Ukraine. They probably can’t put anyone’s actual fingerprints on any of this,’ the aide added
By David Martosko, US Political Editor
DailyMail.com
5 January 2017
The FBI never asked the Democratic National Committee if it could examine a computer server that was the subject of cyber attacks last year.
Instead federal law enforcement relied on data that, Crowdstrike, a private computer security company, gathered from the device.
The FBI later endorsed the conclusion that Russian intelligence services were behind the hacking, and that their goal was to help Donald Trump win the November presidential election.
‘The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI’s Cyber Division and its Washington Field Office, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation,’ DNC deputy communications director Eric Walker told BuzzFeed, ‘but the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.’
Trump’s incoming press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on a Thursday morning conference call that ‘the DNC is on the record saying the FBI never contacted them to validate claims by Crowdstrike, which is the third-party tech security firm, and never actually requested the hacked server.’
‘You know, I would equate this to no one actually going to a crime scene to actually look at the evidence,’ Spicer declared.
Walker said there were no restrictions on what the FBI could request from its private security company’s findings.
‘Beginning at the time the intrusion was discovered by the DNC, the DNC cooperated fully with the FBI and its investigation, providing access to all of the information uncovered by CrowdStrike – without any limits,’ he said.
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