The Washington Post article, “National Security Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump” from June 14, 2016, states that the hacking group known as Fancy Bear “broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said.” The article then states that “The DNC said that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.” The article continues, quoting DNC lawyer Michael Sussman of the Perkins Coie firm: “But at this time, it appears that no financial information or sensitive employee, donor or voter information was accessed by the Russian attackers,” he said.
However, in the subsequent article the following day, June 15, entitled “‘Guccifer 2.0’ claims credit for DNC hack“, the Washington Post reports that Guccifer 2.0 posted to a website some of the allegedly stolen documents. They included a file titled “Donald Trump Report,” dated Dec. 19, 2015, and a list of what was purported to be million-dollar-plus donors to the Democratic Party.”
Questions the DNC must answer are, 1) Why did the DNC say that only two opposition research files were taken, and not donor information, when Guccifer 2.0 did indeed take both the opposition files and the donor files? 2) Why did Guccifer 2.0 release the opposition research files, when those files could prove to be harmful to Donald Trump, if he was indeed a hacker on a mission to elect Donald Trump? 3) Did the DNC collude with Guccifer 2.0 in directing him to release the opposition research files? 4) Why did Guccifer 2.0 continue to release opposition research files, when he later released an archive of Sarah Palin’s Twitter messages on July 14, and the first page of the Trump Foundation’s income tax form and the Trump financial report on October 18, if he had already proven that he had hacked the DNC? and 5) What specific part of the software Crowdstrike used to analyze the DNC server would show that only two files were taken, when presumably hackers were in the DNC system for weeks on end?
If the answer is that the DNC or Crowdstrike did not have full visibility into the scale of intrusions on their security infrastructure, is it a coincidence that the only files the DNC or Crowdstrike thought were missing at the time were the two opposition research files, which if released would be damaging only to Trump and not Clinton, and that Guccifer the next day did indeed release those two opposition research files that are harmful to Trump but not Clinton? Those two files were entitled “Donald Trump Report” and “2016 GOP presidential candidates” in the releases. Are these opposition files that Guccifer 2.0 released the same ones that the DNC is referring to, or was Guccifer 2.0 holding on to even more harmful information, and released the Trump report and GOP report to deflect from it? All of the information from the Trump report comes from public sources. On the other hand, why would Guccifer 2.0 release the opposition research if he was supposed to be helping Donald Trump, if he could prove that he has hacked the DNC by sharing any of the 38 other files he subsequently leaked in later months?
Contact Steve Cunningham at stevecunningham@juno.com