DNC chair says Russian hackers did not stop after Vladamir Putin met Barack Obama at G20 meeting
The claim from Donna Brazile that the hacking continued until election day goes contrary to president Obama’s statement
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The chair of the Democratic National Committee said Russian hackers continued interfering in the election until 8 November, despite the president’s claim that they stopped in September when he told Vladamir Putin to "cut it out".
Donna Brazile, who is calling for a bipartisan inquiry into the alleged hack, told ABC News that donors and other individuals associated with the campaign were personally harassed and the committee’s computer systems were hacked every day on an "hourly" basis.
"No, they did not stop [in September]," she said.
"They came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly. We put up the very best cyber security – but they constantly [attacked]."
She said the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails was "weaponised", caused confusion and disrupted the daily activities of the campaign.
Ms Brazile also suggested the DNC had insufficient protection from intelligence agencies, despite both the CIA and the FBI concluding that Russians hacked the election to boost Donald Trump.
The FBI was accused of sitting on top of “explosive” information regarding the hack.
"I think the Obama administration ― the FBI, the various other federal agencies ― they informed us, they told us what was happening. We knew as of May," Ms Brazile said. "But in terms of helping us to fight, we were fighting a foreign adversary in the cyberspace. The Democratic National Committee, we were no match. And yet we fought constantly."
Ms Brazile, who as an adviser to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, compared the FBI to the Geek Squad, a tech service at department store Best Buy, which tries to help customers but has limited capabilities.
On Friday the president reasoned that the White House's response to the attacks had been appropriate and that he did not want to risk inciting further hacking which could affect the election.
"I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn’t," Mr Obama said.
"In fact we did not see further tampering of the election process. But the leaks through WikiLeaks had already occurred."
Ms Brazile told ABC News that she was a "little disappointed" with the president's response.
"No, when I saw the president, I was a little disappointed that, you know — we were under constant attack. We never felt comfortable. We didn’t know what was coming next."
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments