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FBI Director: Guccifer Admitted He Lied About Hacking Hillary Clinton's Email (dailydot.com)

blottsie writes from a report via The Daily Dot: The Romanian hacker known as Guccifer (real name Marcel Lehel Lazar) admitted to the FBI that he lied to the public when he said he repeatedly hacked into Hillary Clinton's email server in 2013. FBI Director James Comey testified before members on Congress on Thursday that Guccifer never hacked into Clinton's servers and in fact admitted that he lied. Lazar told Fox News and NBC News in May 2016 about his alleged hacking. Despite offering no proof, the claim caused a huge stir, including making headline news on some of America's biggest publications, which offered little skepticism of his claims. "Can you confirm that Guccifer never gained access to her server?" asked Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold. "He did not. He admitted that was a lie," Comey replied. Lazar is currently imprisoned in Alexandria, Virginia, following his extradition from Romania.

29 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Of course he did. by ravenshrike · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was this before or after you offered him a better plea deal Mr. Comey?

    1. Re:Of course he did. by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, it was quite clear. The FBI asked him simply "Did you hack Hillary's Email? If you did it is another crime that we will charge you with. If you say that you didn't then we are not going to charge you with that, since we would rather say that you didn't. So did you?"

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    2. Re: Of course he did. by mSparks43 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      if it wasnt guccifer, i wonder how RT had copies of Hitlerys emails in 2013 then.

      https://www.rt.com/usa/complet...

    3. Re:Of course he did. by reboot246 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Guccifer may be the only one who didn't hack her email.

  2. It's your turn, Mr Assange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would the last asshole claiming to have dirt on Hillary please present your evidence or kindly go fist yourself? I'm no fan of hers but I'm sick of these gutter sniping little shiats trying to play the kingslayer.

    1. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Republicans need someone to blame for the fact that they chose a self-aggrandizing Nazi as their Presidential candidate. They got so used to blaming the Clintons 20 years ago, why not continue now?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

      The Republicans need someone to blame for the fact that they chose a self-aggrandizing Nazi as their Presidential candidate.

      Trump isn't a Nazi. You should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting something so sick. Those swastikas are really just Hindu good luck symbols. Sad!

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Nazis most certainly were populists, or at least posed as populists. Hitler didn't win power by proclaiming he was going to kill all the Jews or invading the rest of Europe, he got in because he promised to make Germany great again, to go after all the elements of German society that made it weak, and make everyone who he viewed as Germany's enemies pay for what they had done. While Mein Kampf had some pretty strong hints as to what he was thinking in the long-term, it wasn't until he had successfully remilitarized the Rhineland that he felt Germany could take on Europe, and it wasn't until he had abandoned all other means of getting rid of the Jews that the Final Solution was floated.

      So yes, Trump is a lot like Hitler, in some respects at least. The populism, the finding of easy targets to scapegoat for all the ills, the rhetoric about how he will make his nation great and restore its glory. He's walked a few steps down the road of Hitler, the only real difference being that whatever else Hitler was, Hitler was capable of actual long-term thinking, planning, and political acumen. Trump appears to possess no such capabilities. What he does have in common with Hitler is the ability to say the unsayable and convince his followers that the unsayable is only unsayable because the enemies of the people don't want it said.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re: It's your turn, Mr Assange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Here's the thing: unless you're a constitutional scholar or some subset of mnemonist, why would anyone, including the president, need to know what article 2 is? Why not just say "legislative branch"? Because he had an axe to grind.

      Trump is ostensibly a businessman, and given the...well, benefit of the doubt...he maybe knows things about his field of interest that a bunch of legislators do not. Lawyers are important in the lawmaking and interpretation process, but these offices are choked full of lawyers. We really need other professionals to rise to the occasion, and how many will when faced with tons of lawyer demagoguery?

    5. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Here come the apologists and lemmings. Most things are pretty straight forward and there is not a conspiracy. However, there is a very clear conspiracy here to the point that it's hardly a conspiracy -- it's just a crime being allowed and enabled.

      Whether or not Guccifer hacked Hillary Clinton's server is irrelevant to the fact that she committed a significant crime, repeatedly, and for many years in an effort to coverup -- at best -- private dealings. It was an insecure server left in a bathroom hidden solely through obscurity. The fact that it knowingly stored or could store assumably classified information is itself an actual crime (gross negligence, again at best). The only difference between the FBI Director's terminology of "extremely careless" (as he said) versus "gross negligence" is legality.

      From the redacted emails that have been released, there have been numerous signs of separate crimes being committed surrounding both gross negligence and willful acts, including where she told her subordinates to remove origination headers, which implies classification (a crime to remove and separately to order others to do it), to send via fax (a separate crime). The same people that have been willfully blocking the investigation (yet another crime) assured the public that this was not classified content.

      I realize that Slashdot is not as technical as it was when I started reading it (get off my lawn...), but I hope that people with a shred of technical awareness can understand the scariness of that approach. Compound it with the fact that Hillary and her attorneys alone decided what emails were handed over to the investigators, plus whatever they managed to find on their own. A statistical look at the released emails shows a very likely pattern of hiding, but again, nothing to see here.

      That last part should strike a nerve too. The simple fact is that it is not up to a person to decide that they control the public record, and it was proven by the FBI that she lied and did not hand over all of the work emails because they found more through their own investigations, yet she has been outspoken and signed documents claiming that she turned over all work emails. That's also a crime. Oh, and the email server was used earlier than she's on the record claiming to have used it.

      Yet, somehow, "no prosecutor" would prosecute this case. It probably had nothing to do with Bill Clinton meeting up with Attorney General Lynch days before the announcement.

      The only thing that we saw from this is that Hillary Clinton is truly above the law. And apparently we all can be too, if we just decide to delete everything before we hand it over and then call everyone a liar as they slowly find evidence of other information. If you're lucky, they won't be able to find enough to prove you wrong (and call you on obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence). Or, as other conspiracies (true or not) have shown, just take a hammer to the hard drive and say "oops".

    6. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As compared to the president who thought there was 52 states?

      Anybody who has been on stage in front of a lot of people will tell you that you WILL fuck up, especially if you are not reading off of a teleprompter or cue cards. You will trip over your own tongue, get numbers mixed up, hell we had a president that any time someone pointed a camera at him would trip over his own feet.

      I'm more worried about their actions than the occasional gaff, and Hillary having her hubby meet the AG on the tarmac and letting her know that she could keep her cushy job if she played ball (You don't REALLY think he spent an hour waiting on a runway for her so they could talk about grandkids, do ya?) which led to just 2 days later the head of the FBI making it clear she broke dozens of laws...but that didn't matter cuz Hillary? Yeah I wouldn't elect that woman dog catcher, much less POTUS.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Informative

      As compared to the president who thought there was 52 states?

      Who was that? Obama looked to me to have started to say "all 50" states, but corrected himself down to 47 in mid thought/sentence, and said fifty-uh-seven. And didn't bother to redact his "fifty" before revising the number down to 47.

    8. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by tburkhol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is there any level of stupidity that will finally convince the man is a simpering retard?

      Trump's use of language is pretty amazing. He manages to come across as so sloppy in his selection of wrong words that his supporters can think, "He didn't really mean that, literally." It gives them license to imagine that Trump "really" meant whatever is in that supporter's own head. So, when Trump detractors see him make racist, economically irrational, or politically naive statements, his fans get to hear exactly what they want to hear.

      I have no idea if he's doing this intentionally or if it's an accident of his 6th-grade vocabulary, but it's fascinating. If the PR people can figure out how he does it, I have no doubt that we'll see a new wave of politicians replacing the old-style non-statement with Trump-style reverse-projection.

    9. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by Jawnn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Troll? Seriously? Look, I will stipulate that Hillary and her people did a poor job of handling sensitive communications IF you Republican fan-boy asshats will acknowledge that poor security practices are the norm in most federal agencies, including the State Department during this administration and the previous one.
      Agreed? Fine. Let's move on.

      So I guess we really are left with nothing but a party that is desperate to deflect attention away from the colossal embarrassment that is their presumptive nominee for president. Y'all really should hope that Hillary wins, because the damage that your boy will do the Republican brand if he actually gets elected will make your current discomfort look like the good old days. But hey, if the NRA likes him, it must be safe to support him. Right?

    10. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by Tinsoldier314 · · Score: 3, Informative

      As compared to the president who thought there was 52 states?

      Who was that? Obama looked to me to have started to say "all 50" states, but corrected himself down to 47 in mid thought/sentence, and said fifty-uh-seven. And didn't bother to redact his "fifty" before revising the number down to 47.

      I'd hate to be a politician, a single slip of the tongue and a bunch of self-important twats will jump on for it. Here's the snopes that further elaborates on the event you are referring to in your comment. http://www.snopes.com/politics...

    11. Re:It's your turn, Mr Assange by harperska · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sort of like how it's all the fault of the Muslims and Mexicans in Trump's speeches?

  3. Is it just me by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    or was this entire thing a disaster for the anti-Hilary camp. When they tried grilling him on Petraeus he was given the chance to defend his actions and provide evidence that Petraeus actions were willful. It's undermined the entire narrative. Meanwhile Trump's doing a lousy job with it too. Did they just botch the whole thing or have they given up and decided to side with Hilary rather than risk Trump?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Is it just me by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Republicans have a bad habit of overbidding their hand.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Re:FBI by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 4, Insightful

    something about a blowjob

    I think you mean that history will remember an extremely hypocritical and self-effacing reversal by the 'progressive' Feminist community on the matter of sexual harassment in the workplace. An enabling First Lady who actively worked to strike down and discredit the female victims of her husband. Said First Lady attempting to become a figurehead for the Feminist movement in the form of the First Woman President.

    It's so weird that if, say, a Gloria Steinem feminist in 1975 was asked if it could come to be, they'd say you were out of your fucking mind.

    But anyways. It doesn't matter. It's Hillary's turn to be nominated.

  5. Re:Hang on by drunken_boxer777 · · Score: 5, Informative

    He wasn't extradited for his claim about Hillary's server. He was extradited for:

    In the United States, Lazar is charged in a nine-count indictment with three counts of wire fraud, three counts of gaining unauthorized access to protected computers, and one count each of aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice. ... Lazar hacked into the email and social media accounts of high-profile victims, including a family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former presidential advisor. After gaining unauthorized access to their accounts, Lazar publicly released his victims’ private email correspondence, medical and financial information and personal photographs. The indictment also alleges that in July 2013 and August 2013, Lazar impersonated a victim after compromising the victim’s account.

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr...

    Check the timeline. He claimed to have hacked Hillary's server in May. The DOJ press release above is dated April 1, meaning he was already extradited before making the claim. So they still have a number of charges to investigate.

  6. Largely irrelevant by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let me put it this way since this has become so heavily politicized people are having trouble thinking about it objectively.

    Say you had your bank account login details, passwords, and credit cards stored on a password service like LastPass which is supposed to store it securely, and you later learned they weren't securing it at all and in fact were storing all your sensitive info in cleartext. Would you be satisfied and let the company off the hook if they claimed "but it's ok - no harm was done since we weren't hacked"?

    The problem isn't whether or not that info was hacked. The problem is that sensitive info which was supposed to be handled securely was not. The only difference actually being hacked makes is a hypothetical outcome vs a real outcome, and is largely irrelevant. It just means you got lucky and dodged a bullet; it does not validate or excuse how that info was mishandled. This is like a 5-year old who runs across a busy street instead of waiting with you for the light to change, and when you berate him for not staying by your side and waiting until it was safe says, "but I made it across OK" as if that somehow justifies his behavior.

    1. Re:Largely irrelevant by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > The problem is that sensitive info which was supposed to be handled securely was not.

      This was universal. The government has shown itself incapable of securely hosting email several times. I haven't seen any credible evidence that the email server everyone is calling insecure is any less or more secure than any other email server of the time.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  7. 100+ emails classified when they arrived on server by drnb · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let me get this straight. An email server that had nothing critical on it ...

    Nope, wrong, the FBI director testified that there were over 100 emails that were classified at the time they arrived on the server. Hillary's claim that all the controversial emails were later reclassified after arrival was proven false.

    And these 100+ only represent what was recoverable. Tens of thousands of emails were not recoverable. And we also know from the FBI investigation that Hillary's claim that these emails were all personal was also proven false. Several of these not handed over by Hillary and deleted from her server were also classified, they were found through other recipients government email accounts.

  8. Re:100+ emails classified when they arrived on ser by drnb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not true. He stated 8 had classification markings, all of which contained paragraphs marked with (c) designating them as confidential.

    "In total, the investigation found 110 emails in 52 email chains containing information that was classified at the time it was sent or received. Eight chains contained top secret information, the highest level of classification, 36 chains contained secret information, and the remaining eight contained confidential information. Most of these emails, however, did not contain markings clearly delineating their status.
    Even so, Clinton and her team still should have known the information was not appropriate for an unclassified system, Comey said.
    "There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation," Comey said of some of the top secret chains."
    http://www.politifact.com/trut...

    Markings are not required. Some information is classified by its very nature and does not need an explicit mark. State department personnel and other authorized to handle classified information are well instructed on these facts.

  9. Re:100+ emails classified when they arrived on ser by drnb · · Score: 4, Informative

    right... because people just a a tingly spidey-sense when an email has classified information in it

    No spidey sense required, people who handle classified info are trained in what info is classified by default, regardless of markings. Basically a marking must be there to say it is declassified, not that it is classified. For example references to undercover CIA operatives, even indirect references, which is one of the things found to have been passing through Clinton's server.

    That is why they did not attempt to prosecute, ...

    No, the FBI director specified that there was no clear intent, merely incompetence. Intent is a necessary element of a crime. That is why he offered as an example, firing people and revoking their security clearance, when they display such incompetence on the job.

    And for the 8 pieces that she received that were actually marked... then I say BRAVO, for only making a mistake 8 times out of 30,000 emails.

    No, its 8 out of 110.

  10. Re:Crooked Hillary by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    She needs to go to jail for mishandling classified information. FBI's report stated, she did it — suck it up, cupcake, while the rest of us are sucking up the sorry reality, that laws are for "little people".

    Why the fuck do you think FBI decided not to prosecute then? It was pretty obvious the director doesnt think they would be able to convince the jury to convict, and it wouldnt hold water in court. The FBI doesnt have like a 93% conviction rate for no reason. Or do you think they should press charges anyway, because it serves your political agenda?

  11. FBI Director says 1 prosecution in 99 years by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Informative

    So if you read the transcript or excerpts now appearing on many sites...

    Comey says that only one person has been prosecuted for gross negligence (what hillary is accused of) and in that case there was espionage involved as well.

    Further...

    12:12 p.m. Pushing back on Republican characterizations of his recommendation adhering to a "double standard" when it comes to Hillary Clinton, FBI Director James Comey said it would instead be a "double standard" if the former secretary of state was prosecuted.

    "You know what would be a double standard? If she was prosecuted for gross negligence," Comey noted. "She was negligent. That I can establish."

    11:45 a.m. Comey told the House Oversight Committee that the decision not to recommend an indictment was unanimous among the investigative team.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  12. Re:FBI by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Informative

    "sexual harassment in the workplace"... "female victims of her husband"

    You make it sound like Clinton was a serial rapist or something.

    It was consensual and completely legal. There was never any debate over that.

    Clinton lied about it under oath. That was the problem.

  13. Re:Which statement was a lie? by Megol · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless you are one of the conspiracy theory nuts (which in most cases believe in multiple directly contradictory fantasies) the logical solution is that he was lying before. Otherwise there should have been evidence of the break-in and it would have been added to the severe criticism in the FBI report.

    For a nut though it's just evidence for a cover-up. But for a nut everything is evidence for a cover-up...