BuzzFeed News is reporting that a DNC spokesman has revealed that the group responded to numerous requests by officials investigating alleged hacking by Russia, but, in his words, “the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.”
The U.S. intelligence community seems to have a broad consensus that Russia tried to sway the recent election, but investigators looking into the matter reportedly did not access the DNC servers.
As a recent piece by BuzzFeed News states, “The FBI did not examine the servers of the Democratic National Committee before issuing a report attributing the sweeping cyberintrusion to Russia-backed hackers.”
The media outlet quotes Eric Walker, deputy communications director for DNC, as writing in an email that they had “responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.”
While this story has raised some eyebrows, The Verge reports that such work is often outsourced to third-party companies--in this case, one called CrowdStrike--to enhance efficiencies and mitigate privacy concerns.
NBC News’ Ken Dilanian also tweeted in response to BuzzFeed’s story, “Source close to the investigation says FBI didn't need the DNC servers because it already had the forensic data from upstream collection.”
The BuzzFeed story was published one day before James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, testified on Capitol Hill about Russia and the U.S. election.
The Washington Post quotes Clapper as telling the Senate Armed Services Committee about foreign hackers, “Whatever crack, fissure, they could find in our tapestry...they would exploit it.”
