NYTimes: FBI Tried to Tell DNC in 2015 Russia Had Hacked Them, but Contractor Took Weeks to Respond

Nearly Seven Months Went by Without Top DNC Officials Being Informed

There are many who believe that FBI Director James Comey‘s letter to Congress eleven days before the election announcing it had found emails on a computer shared by top Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, is a defining moment that likely led to Hillary Clinton losing the election. 

Here’s FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver on the issue:

But it was another action the FBI took, or rather, inaction, 13 months earlier, in part, that led to the Comey letter which led to Clinton losing the election.

The New York Times reports the FBI in Sept. of 2015 contacted the Democratic National Committee to tell them hackers linked to the Russian government had infiltrated DNC computer systems. But the person, a tech support contractor the FBI contacted at the DNC took weeks to take the phone call seriously, in part because they weren’t sure the call was actually from the FBI, and not a prank caller.

“Yared Tamene, the tech-support contractor at the D.N.C. who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His first moves were to check Google for ‘the Dukes,'” The New York Times explains, referring to the name of the Russian hacking group, “and conduct a cursory search of the D.N.C. computer system logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion.”

“By his own account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several weeks — in part because he wasn’t certain the caller was a real F.B.I. agent and not an impostor.”

To be fair, the FBI did their job, they told the DNC they had been hacked. But it’s not unreasonable to think the FBI could have picked up the phone to call, say, then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, or another top DNC official, and not rely on a third-party private contractor who clearly was out of their depth. Why didn’t the FBI walk in to DNC headquarters? Or call someone who could direct appropriate action? 

Even the Times places a portion of blame on the FBI, but what’s even more stunning is the amount of time between the point the FBI contacted the DNC and top DNC officials were finally informed Russian government operatives had hacked them: almost seven months.

“The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems,” the Times writes. “In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.”

There are many “what-ifs” and what’s done is done (although congressional investigations, which may not take place, are essential) but what’s clear is the FBI did not work especially hard to get the attention of top decision makers at the DNC, and the DNC clearly was horribly mismanaged.

One more reason, on top of all of these, that the DNC chairmanship must be held by a full time profession with no other job, like being a sitting Congressman.

Some responses via Twitter:

 

 

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