On Thursday, John Podesta published a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post – blasting the FBI for its “lackadaisical response” to Russian hacking during the 2016 election, particularly compared to its investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
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John Podesta, the former chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign also had his own emails hacked and leaked by Russian hackers. unleashed on FBI Director James B. Comey in an
Podesta was particularly unflattering when it came to FBI Director James B. Comey – Podesta said the FBI director felt so strongly about Clinton’s emails that he devoted “thousands of hours” to the investigation but that he didn’t bother to send an agent to tell the Democratic National Committee about evidence of Russian hacking in September 2015.
The former campaign chairman also accuses the bureau of bias in dwelling on Clinton’s email server rather than pursuing the Russian hacking threat, saying “Comparing the FBI’s massive response to the overblown email scandal with the seemingly lackadaisical response to the very real Russian plot to subvert a national election shows that something is deeply broken at the FBI.”
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As the former chair of the Clinton campaign and a direct target of Russian hacking, I understand just how serious this is. So I was surprised to read in the New York Times that when the FBI discovered the Russian attack in September 2015, it failed to send even a single agent to warn senior Democratic National Committee officials. Instead, messages were left with the DNC IT “help desk.” As a former head of the FBI cyber division told the Times, this is a baffling decision: “We are not talking about an office that is in the middle of the woods of Montana.”
Podesta also said that the FBI’s response to the threat of Russian hacking and cyberattacks had gone from “baffling” to “downright infuriating.” And he called for a robust and independent investigation modeled on the 9/11 Commission.
