Comey was concerned blaming Russia for hacks of Democrats could appear too political
By Ellen Nakashima
November 1 at 6:00 AM
FBI Director James B. Comey advised against the Obama administration publicly accusing Russia of hacking political organizations on the grounds that it would make the administration appear unduly partisan too close to the Nov. 8 election, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
But he supported the administration’s formal denunciation last month as long as it did not have the FBI’s name on it, they said. Comey was sensitive not only to his agency appearing to influence the election but also to seeming biased while it was conducting an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions ...
Comey’ s concern about election timing has some officials scratching their heads in light of his decision last week to notify Congress — 11 days before the election — that the FBI was planning to review newly discovered emails in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server ...
The news of the DNC hack broke in June, with cybersecurity experts who responded to the breach concluding it was the work of Russian government hackers. FBI investigators at the time privately said that was their conclusion, too. A series of other breaches soon came to light, including of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which the FBI privately said were carried out by the Russians ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-director-james-b-comey-was-concerned-that-publicly-blaming-russia-for-hacks-of-democrats-could-appear-too-political-in-runup-to-nov-8/2016/10/31/b01a8be4-9fab-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
