WASHINGTON – The FBI warned the Clinton campaign and dozens of lawmakers in recent months that they were being targeted by hackers, according to people familiar with the discussions.
There is no evidence that those hacks were successful. But the FBI’s warning came weeks before The Washington Post reported that Russian hackers had twice broken into computers at the Democratic National Committee, underscoring concerns of national security experts that foreign adversaries might be trying to influence the presidential election.
Those fears burst onto the public stage this week as Democrats gathered in Philadelphia for their national convention in the wake of Friday’s release of thousands of damaging emails on the website WikLeaks. The embarrassing emails spurred the resignation of the party chairwoman and marred a carefully orchestrated opening of the Democrats’ convention.
Activists and campaign officials, anxious about what leaks may be yet to come, also worried about the alleged involvement of the Russian government, with campaign officials suggesting that the Kremlin was releasing the documents to damage Clinton’s candidacy. National security experts, while cautious about leaping to premature conclusions, warned of the possibility of a startling escalation in an ongoing cyberwar.
If the Russians were behind the leaks, said former CIA director Michael Hayden, “they’re clearly taking their game to another level. It would be weaponizing information.” He added: “You don’t want a foreign power affecting your election. We have laws against that.”
On Monday, the FBI formally acknowledged that it is looking into the DNC hack. The agency has been probing the matter for months and said publicly that it will “investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.” The FBI announcement followed the stunning allegation by the Clinton campaign Sunday that the Russian government was behind the release of damaging documents on the WikiLeaks website as part of a ploy to help Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, called the suggestions “absurd” and suggested that Democrats were looking to shift attention away from damaging information about the party’s conduct during the primary campaign.
On Monday, fallout from the hack also reverberated at the Kremlin, where a spokesman declined to comment on the hack except to refer reporters to comments by Trump’s son, Don Jr., calling the allegations part of a pattern of “lie after lie.”
“Mr. Trump Jr. has already strongly responded” to the Clinton campaign’s claims, the Russian spokesman said, according to the news agency Tass.
The founder of WikiLeaks and its current top editor, Julian Assange, told the “Democracy Now” radio show Monday that he would not discuss the source of the data.
“In relation to sourcing, I can say some things. (A), we never reveal our sources, obviously. That’s what we pride ourselves on. And we won’t in this case, either. But no one knows who our source is.” Assange has said the release Friday was the first in a series.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence experts acknowledge they are taking the claim seriously but cautioned Monday that they have reached no conclusions.
The FBI is focusing on the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, and investigating whether it was responsible for passing the emails to WikiLeaks, according to individuals familiar with the investigation.
The GRU is one of two Russian spy agencies that apparently compromised the DNC’s computer systems, according to CrowdStrike, a cyber-firm that investigated the breach this spring on behalf of the DNC.
The GRU, which broke into the DNC’s computers in late April, also stole opposition research files on Trump, according to CrowdStrike.
Another Russian spy agency, the FSB, or an affiliate, had penetrated the DNC’s computers last summer and was monitoring DNC email and chat traffic, CrowdStrike said.
The FBI is trying to determine with certainty whether Russian intelligence passed the emails to WikiLeaks.
