There is a potentially huge story that is flying under the radar this week and there probably won’t be a special counsel appointed over it.
Don’t expect it to generate even a fraction of the media hysteria that the alleged hack of the DNC in 2016 did, but a bombshell report reveals that several top Republicans had their emails hacked and stolen prior to the critical midterm elections.
In a story that is just now being reported, the cyber intrusion by an “unknown entity” targeted the emails of four top officials of the National Republican Congressional Committee according to Politico.
Stunningly, top Republicans were not informed of the hacking and did not know until they were contacted by Politico this week which creates even more questions than the actual breach of security itself and it’s hard to fathom how after the DNC incident that the NRCC didn’t make sure that its systems were secured.
The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 midterm campaigns, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder https://t.co/6wcFOwYWay
— POLITICO (@politico) December 5, 2018
The emails of four NRCC senior officials were stolen in a hack that was detected in April 2018.
According to Politico, “Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in major 2018 hack”:
The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 midterm campaigns, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder, according to three senior party officials.
The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated, and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident.
However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana — were not informed of the hack until Politico contacted the NRCC on Monday with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told, either.
Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, who served as NRCC chairman this past election cycle, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit.
AND
Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent because of the nature of the attack.
Donor information was not compromised during the intrusion, the party officials said.
“The NRCC can confirm that it was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity. The cybersecurity of the Committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” said Ian Prior, a vice president at Mercury.
Prior, a former Justice Department official and NRCC operative, has been working with the committee to deal with the matter.
“To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident,” Prior added.
Could it be that a foreign country was looking to meddle in our elections on behalf of the Democrats? Would that possibly be China?
This is a developing story…
