Kevin Johnson reports that near the end of the recent House committee hearing in which FBI Director James Comey dealt a double-barreled blow to the White House, acknowledging the existence of a wide-ranging counter-intelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the director also made a less-noticed but striking concession about Russia unprecedented cyber assault on the American political system.
It took 10 months, Comey said, from the time the FBI first notified the Democratic National Committee of Russia intrusion in 2015 before the bureau was provided a forensic analysis of the hack into the sensitive electronic archives of the DNC.
The breach, which ultimately allowed a wave of embarrassing internal communications to stream into public view in the midst of a contentious general election, represented not only an unprecedented attempt to influence an election but also underscored a lack of urgency in the collective response to it.
Knowing what we know now, would the FBI have done anything different in trying to notify the DNC of what happened?, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, asked. We have had to set up a much larger flare, Comey responded, explaining that while agents made extensive efforts to notify the DNC, the committee never turned over its physical equipment to the bureau for examination and moved to hire a private firm to investigate.
Unfortunately, it always seems to take a major crisis for America to move to confront a problem, said Ron Hosko, a former chief of the FBI Criminal Division. Even after all that occurred in the past election, Russia and others are continuing their campaigns of intrusion. They are doing it because they have been emboldened by the inconsistent response and inaction.
How does this impact energy selection in the U.S.? The answer is by impacting the general public view (and congressional representation) toward one over another energy source....coal vs. natural gas, nuclear power, etc.
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