Why Did DNC Force FBI To Use A Report They Paid For In Hacking Investigation?

by Jeff Dunetz 
On Wednesday, the DNC tried to throw the FBI under the bus by saying that neither the FBI nor any other intelligence agency ever did an independent assessment of the organization’s breached servers. Instead, they alleged, the FBI relied exclusively on information from private digital forensics company Crowdstrike. While essentially true, the Democratic Party left out one very important piece of information…the DNC wouldn’t allow the FBI to look a their servers for the hacking investigation, instead forced them to use the Crowdstrike report paid for by the Party.
Eric Walker, the DNC’s deputy communications director told Buzzfeed:

“The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI’s Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.”

But  a senior FBI law enforcement official told Wired,

“The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated.”

The FBI agreed that it relied on data from Crow…

Read the rest of the story at Jeff Dunetz’s blog The Lid