FBI told ILGOP in June it was likely hacked
Monday, Dec 12, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
The FBI notified the Illinois Republican Party in June that some of its email accounts may have been hacked, but party officials were not told that it was part of a wide-ranging federal investigation of Russian activity in the nation’s political system, the state GOP’s executive director said Sunday.
Nick Klitzing said the state GOP on its own found 18 of its emails on the website DCLeaks.com. The New York Times reported the website was an outlet that U.S. intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies believe was created by a unit controlled by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
Klitzing said FBI agents raised questions about emails involving the state GOP accounts during their visit. The four email accounts involved were inactive or rarely used, and the hacked emails dated to 2015, long before the 2016 contests for president and Illinois offices, Klitzing said.
A review of the emails provided by the state GOP shows the messages were largely rudimentary in nature, ranging from requests for training and local party event invitations to reports and discussion that U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton should be considered a “dark horse” candidate to replace House Speaker John Boehner, a contest ultimately won by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
The disclosure of the hacked email accounts comes amid reports by the Times and Washington Post that assessments by American intelligence agencies, including the CIA, concluded that Russia acted to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Republican President-elect Donald Trump and to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton’s chances.
- Anon - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:35 am:
Great — so on top of everything else we have to worry about the Russians blackmailing Republican party leadership in Illinois?
- illinois manufacturer - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:38 am:
Yes we do anon…and I agree with Joe Walsh first time ever
- Signal and Noise - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:44 am:
Nonsense, there was no hacking. All made up by lamestream media. SAD!
- JohnnyPyleDriver - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:47 am:
I’m really having a hard time processing this. For the vast majority of my lifetime, a story like this would be near cause for war. Now it’s just another chapter in partisan sniping that one “side” cares about, while the other yawns. I mean what a spectacle to have the President-elect of the US calling his own intelligence agencies liars while his party sits back and ignores the evidence that a hostile foreign government helped steal the election. Sad days. Not sure what it even means to be an American these days
- Sir Reel - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:48 am:
According to the Donald, nothing there.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 9:57 am:
June, twenty sixteen, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious e-mail accounts without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.
- Amalia - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:01 am:
pretty soon, with the way Trump runs the news, this will be happening more and more except with him in charge, we will not find out. the management of news will actually be more frightening than the hack itself. if a Russian hack happens in the real world, and Trump refuses to understand it, or care, did it really exist? on Jan 20, we will begin to know another world, well, actually , not know it.
- Juvenal - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:03 am:
Everyone seems in complete denial over the very real likelihood that the Russians were involved in the GOP primary, phishing for Intel for Trump.
- Annonin' - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:07 am:
But wait — didn’t we hear Trump COS Rance Prevos claim RNC was not hacked? So we believe the Ruskies hack the CarWashKing but not RNC. Comeon man.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:13 am:
I don’t understand — just how was Hillary Clinton involved in this?
No worries. The investigative sleuths in Congress will get to the bottom of this Clinton/commie plot to sap our precious bodily fluids.
Those millions of fraudulent votes the president-elect discovered, too.
- AlfondoGonz - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:18 am:
While I rarely agreed with Republicans (voters, not pols), I always admired their Patriotism. I sure hope they find it.
- Way Way Down Here - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:18 am:
Glad I got the fluoride swabs when I was a kid.
- Anon - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:26 am:
===a story like this would be near cause for war.===
We hack their stuff. They hack our stuff. If hacking were a cause for war the United States has been inviting war with most of the EU.
A war with Russia would be as unpopular as it is destructive. The same as a war with China. We spent a whole lot of time beating the drum to con more than 70% of the American people into invading Iraq.
It’d take even more work to convince as many folks that we’re in the right when we bully China into attacking the United States or it’s allies and the same with Russia.
- cdog - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:41 am:
So if we believe the MSM/HRC machine, Russians hacked Podesta’s emails, and the DNC, and the RNC.
So even though a HUGE GAP existed between Trump’s negative news coverage and HRC’s positive news coverage, we are told we must believe the Russians controlled this.
Controlled what? Controlled all the deals cut between CNN/CBS/etc/print media and Dem operatives to control debate questions and headlines. The Podesta emails caused Wasserman-Schultz to resign, and ended Brazil’s public role too.
If Trump can cut deals and find common ground, with Russia and China, good for him. Good for us. HRC is a classic war-monger and she lost, thank goodness.
I can’t wait for Madigan to start using the Dem talking points of “Russia did it.” /s
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:43 am:
–It’d take even more work to convince as many folks that we’re in the right when we bully China into attacking the United States or it’s allies and the same with Russia.–
Um, come again, comrade?
Something was lost in the translation there with the bullying accusation and the so forth and the what not and the QED.
- A guy - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:44 am:
It appears they were phishing for something interesting and couldn’t find it. Kinda embarrassing on that front.
Our computers are constantly upgraded with spyware and more defense than the computer has memory to even store. Gremlins from everywhere. Seems like a good time to be in the micro storage business.
I think hacking started 10 minutes after computers were invented. All the more reason to ensure your server is protected.
- Groundhog Day - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 10:52 am:
Sometimes there really is a Ruski hiding under the bed
- Anon - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 11:23 am:
===If Trump can cut deals and find common ground, with Russia and China===
Someone must have missed the Chinese choosing the fly one of their nuclear capable bombers through the South China Sea relatively recently.
So far the “common ground” has been informing China of little or no interest of following our previous agreements with China that have been in place for decades — which isn’t exactly common ground.
Subordinating US interests to Russian interests is also not common ground.
Never mind that the new Secretary of State’s oil company lost a huge pipeline project due to sanctions against Russia that were put in place because they invaded Ukraine.
“Common ground.”
Ugh - just the kind of commentary I’m used to hearing from “conservatives” in Springfield that bluff their way through foreign policy discussions.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 11:29 am:
===If Trump can cut deals and find common ground, with Russia…–
He already did.
- Put the fun in unfunded - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 11:31 am:
Now we finally know why the IL GOP has been so inept; the Russians hacked their “strategy”
- David - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 12:07 pm:
Looks like the real plan is turn Russia around and make it great again…and if the US and China obliterate each other all the better….you only live twice.
- David - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 12:07 pm:
Looks like the real plan is turn Russia around and make it great again…and if the US and China obliterate each other all the better….you only live twice.
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 12:18 pm:
===If Trump can cut deals and find common ground, with Russia…–
He already did.
Yea common ground to build a hotel there.
- burbanite - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 12:19 pm:
oops 12:18 is me.
- Cohen's Ghost - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 12:46 pm:
In a gravely voice.
“Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost”
- walker - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 1:26 pm:
It makes no sense to dismiss this out of hand. We should let the investigators do their jobs, and report comprehensively without partisan leaks. People from both parties should welcome getting to the bottom of this, and it looks like many in the US House and Senate will.
- Keyser Soze - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 1:28 pm:
The Times and the Post are spinning it that the Ruskies helped to defeat their candidate. Who told them that, Putin? Media credibility really stinks these days.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 1:33 pm:
–The Times and the Post are spinning it that the Ruskies helped to defeat their candidate. Who told them that, Putin? Media credibility really stinks these days. –
They are reporting a CIA assessment, just as they reported the various things that Comey said about Clinton.
- JohnnyPyleDriver - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 1:59 pm:
==We hack their stuff. They hack our stuff. ==
I’m well aware that we hack and influence elections globally. Does that mean I have to support those efforts and also accept that we don’t fully control our own destinies? Such a weird justification. Again, I honestly don’t know what’s happening to this country. I barely recognize it
- AlfondoGonz - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 2:15 pm:
“The Times and the Post are spinning it that the Ruskies helped to defeat their candidate. Who told them that, Putin”
Despite certain entities doing everything they can to blur the line between facts and spin, the line still exists. Facts aren’t spin. Facts aren’t biased. So, please, don’t shoot the messenger or lament that the facts are not beneficial to you.
“Says who?” “Yea, right!” The refrain of the meritless.
- A guy - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 2:39 pm:
I guess they’ve become a lot more sophisticated and we’ve come a long way from:
Vote Nyet on Hillary.
Until then, I just wasn’t sure. /s
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 7:19 pm:
A CIA conclusion that Russia worked actively to sway the presidential election should be taken seriously, as a bipartisan group in Congress is now doing.
Congress should also investigate president-elect Trump’s charge that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in the last election. If true, that’s an astounding indictment of the democratic process.
We’re supposed to take the words that originate in Trump’s brain and come out of his mouth seriously, correct? Because he’s in line for a yoogely serious gig.
- Rabid - Monday, Dec 12, 16 @ 11:36 pm:
Yep they fixed the popular vote for Hillary be exposing the written words Debbie Donna and Podesta sent?