The National Republican Congressional Committee was hacked this election cycle, it admitted Tuesday afternoon.
“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,” NRCC spokesman Ian Prior said in a statement. “To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident.”
The major breach included thousands of emails from four senior aides, according to Politico, which first reported the hacks. An outside vendor noticed and alerted the committee in April. The committee then launched an internal investigation and alerted the FBI.
According to the report, no one at the NRCC alerted outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) or anyone else in House GOP leadership. NRCC officials told Politico that was to try to keep the information close to the vest to make it easier to investigate and avoid alerting the hackers that they’d been detected. They believe a foreign agent was behind the hacks. No information from the emails was used publicly, according to Politico.
The NRCC also, as has been previously reported, balked in negotiations with officials at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that would have kept both sides from using any hacked materials.
Sure they were.
Not that we’ve yet seen anything that directly implicates the Russians, but it’s good to remember that the Russians are mostly in love with chaos, not any particular policy position that the Republicans hold, or whatever. Had the Democratic Party and its electorate been the one that was more exploitable by state actors in 2016, the GOP would have been the entity attacked.
Fucking with all involved is the best way to keep American politics chaotic.
Don’t worry–They were. I am certain that this is at least one source for all the Kompromat that keeps Rs in line.
Absolutely.
Might be a good time to remind everyone that Russia hacked the RNC’s emails in 2016 too, but conveniently never released any of them to harm any of the GOP candidates.