WashingtonTimes | The conventional wisdom that last year’s Democratic National
Committee computer hack, which triggered WikiLeaks to release thousands
of emails revealing Democratic Party favoritism of Hillary Clinton over
Bernard Sanders, was conducted by Russian operatives is facing
increasing scrutiny.
Theories once considered fringe and extreme
have begun entering the mainstream, with a prominent group of former NSA
and CIA officials claiming the hack that rocked the 2016 presidential
election was not actually a hack at all but rather a leak by an insider
with physical access to the DNC computer network.
Speculation
around the claim by the group, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS), is also being fueled by investigators re-examining
statements by key players in the drama, including former President
Barack Obama and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose carefully
chosen words on the hack have drawn fresh attention.
A
research memo compiled by VIPS last month directly conflicts with the
U.S. intelligence community’s January claim that it was Russian
operatives who orchestrated the cyberattack on the DNC network.
The
memo, which the group sent to President Trump last month under the
title “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?” — investigates metadata
and data transfer speeds found in the records of the alleged Russian
cyberintrusion into DNC computers.
