The FBI has responded to a report from the Daily Caller, as well as tweets from President Donald Trump bolstering the report, that allege former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server was hacked by a Chinese company, which reportedly obtained nearly all her emails in real-time.
An FBI official told NBC News on Wednesday, “The FBI has not found any evidence the (Clinton) servers were compromised.”
The official also pointed out a June report from the FBI that said while it was “possible” foreign agents broke into the email server, the agency “acknowledged that the FBI investigation and its forensic analysis did not find evidence that Clinton’s email server systems were compromised,” NBC reported.
President Trump on Tuesday indicated there should be an investigation following the new report this week that a Chinese company hacked into Clinton’s private email server and got copies of nearly all her emails in real-time.
Trump has scrutinized the FBI and its former director, James Comey, in the past. When a June report from the Justice Department Inspector General said there was no bias in how the FBI had handled the investigation into Clinton’s emails, Trump said that was wrong and there was “total bias,” Reuters had reported.
The President took to Twitter this week about the Daily Caller report and Clinton’s emails.
“Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
Report just out: “China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.” Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018
Later Tuesday, past midnight, Trump tweeted again, insinuating that an FBI or Justice Department investigation should look into the issue.
“Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone,” he tweeted.
Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018
The Daily Caller Foundation this week revealed that a Chinese company reportedly hacked into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and received copies of nearly all her emails in real-time.
The Daily Caller cited two sources briefed on the matter, but did not provide any context to the sources. Fox News also reported on the Chinese hacking of Clinton’s emails this week.
Several news outlets have reported on the report alleging the Chinese hacking, as well as Trump’s tweets about it.
The Washington Post pointed out in its headline that Trump’s claim of the Chinese hacking was “unfounded.” CNBC referred to the Daily Caller report as a “fringe” report, “promoted by Trump.”
The Chinese-owned company, based in Washington, D.C., reportedly inserted code into Clinton’s email server, located in upstate New York, that would send the company virtually all her emails in real-time, The Daily Caller reported Monday. This allegedly took place throughout her tenure as Secretary of State, until 2013.
Sources: Chinese-owned company operating in D.C. area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails.https://t.co/6jOf0gLVZb
— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 28, 2018
This is not the first time it has been alleged that Clinton’s email server was hacked and infiltrated by foreign agents.
A POLITICO report from 2015 cites Congressional investigators who said Clinton’s private server was the target of hackers from China, South Korea and Germany.
Clinton used her private email server for government work during her tenure as Secretary of State, and it contained tens of thousands of emails – and more than 400 of those are now classified.
The former Secretary of State has come under fire for her carless handling of classified emails on the private email server, and the topic was a huge talking point during the 2016 Presidential election.
A U.S. District Court judge in August 2017 ordered that the State Department re-open its investigation into Clinton’s emails, and to search for anything written about the Benghazi attack in 2012 that might be contained on the State Department’s email server, state.gov.
District Court Judge Amit Mehta said the State Department did not do enough when it looked for Benghazi-related emails that Clinton might have sent about the assault on the U.S. diplomatic compound. Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed during the Sept. 11, 2012 attack.
Clinton turned over about 30,000 emails to the State Department in 2014, following Freedom of Information Act requests.
The requests came after officials discovered that Clinton had sent emails using her personal email account, rather than her secure government account, during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State.
Clinton’s emails and email etiquette were a prominent talking point of the 2016 Presidential Election, when Clinton ran against and lost to Donald Trump.
It was also revealed this January that Clinton’s former top aide, Huma Abedin, forwarded State Department emails – including at least four classified emails – to her personal email account and her husband’s email account.
The State Department released a batch of Abedin’s emails that had been forwarded to her now-estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. The FBI found the emails on Weiner’s laptop, and at least four of them were labeled “classified.” The emails had been forwarded toward the end of the 2016 Presidential campaign.
Abedin had also forwarded emails with intelligence information from her State Department email addresses to her private Yahoo email account back in 2009, and she did so before Yahoo was famously hacked by state-sponsored agents at least once, in 2013, and in following years, including in 2014 by a Russian spy.