U.S. intelligence officials’ concerns of a Russian hacking operation against political targets continues to escalate, as FBI officials now believe Russian intelligence agencies likely orchestrated the hacks of emails belonging to a contractor for Florida’s election system and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Podesta’s emails were released in the latest batch of emails released by Wikileaks. Trump advisor Roger Stone admitted Wednesday that he had “back-channel communication” with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A day earlier, Podesta told Bloomberg on Tuesday that it is “a reasonable assumption or at least a reasonable conclusion” that the Trump campaign knew about the most recent WikiLeaks leaks before their release. He pointed to a tweet from Stone that claimed: “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
The series of events follows a statement issued last week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security that officially named Russia as responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest promised a “proportional” response to the alleged Russian campaign against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other U.S. political targets, but said “it is unlikely that our response would be announced in advance.” The Obama administration and U.S. intelligence agencies were silent for months after the hack, despite multiple reports by cybersecurity firms linking Russian intelligence groups to the DNC and DCCC hacks.
Full Article: FBI: Russia likely hacked Florida election contractor and Clinton campaign chairman.