Is Guccifer 2.0 Russian? Officials across multiple government agencies and private security firms agree that the Democratic National Committee e-mail hack appears to be the work of someone based out of the former Soviet Union.
As early as Monday, The Daily Beast reported that the FBI’s investigation into the Guccifer 2.0 leak was leading authorities toward a Russian hacker . Five people familiar with the probe indicated as much, with the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, David Shedd, openly affiliating himself with this theory.
“The release of emails just as the Democratic National Convention is getting underway this week has the hallmarks of a Russian active measures campaign.”
Since then, several other major news outlets have quoted anonymous high-ranking sources who say that all signs are pointing to Russiain the scramble to identify Guccifer 2.0. On Tuesday, The New York Timespublished a story that the Obama administration now believes that the hacker was a part of Russia’s military intelligence organization, G.R.U. The Guardianfurther reinforced these statements with an article citing their own anonymous source on Wednesday.
Further backing up these anonymous sources, the President also appeared on NBC Tuesday evening to discuss the investigation into Guccifer 2.0. Obama repeatedly referred to Donald Trump’s own positive words about Russian president Vladimir Putin and the country of Russia. He also said that such an invasion into American politics was not out of the question, noting that such meddling from Russia had been uncovered in European elections.
“I know that experts have attributed this to the Russians. What we do know is that the Russians hack our systems, not just government systems but private systems.”
Donald Trump has addressed rumors that Russia is spying on his opponent in his favor head-on. In a series of tweets on Tuesday and Wednesday, he repeatedly made references to the Guccifer 2.0 emails — even specifically calling out NY Times for supporting the “Dem’s narrative.”
Funny how the failing @nytimes is pushing Dems narrative that Russia is working for me because Putin said “Trump is a genius.” America 1st!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 27 de julio de 2016
If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 27 de julio de 2016
For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 26 de julio de 2016
In order to try and deflect the horror and stupidity of the Wikileakes disaster, the Dems said maybe it is Russia dealing with Trump. Crazy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 26 de julio de 2016
Aside from official government research into the Guccifer 2.0 hack, several private security firms have also pointed to Russian fingerprints on the breach . On Tuesday, ThreatConnect published a report culling all the data collected on the leak thus far. Its findings indicate that two known Russian hackers, Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, are likely responsible for the attack. Many believe that that the pair is actually the GRU and FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service.
In the fallout over the leaked e-mails that showed party leadership favoring Clinton’s candidacy over that of Bernie Sanders, many have maintained that Hillary is attempting to downplay the severity of the content by linking it to Russia. If such a smoking gun is established, it could serve as evidence that that the country has an interest in seeing her lose the election. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stated in an interview with Democracy Now! that he intended to hurt her campaign with the Guccifer 2.0 leaks.
While the full repercussions and motivation behind the hack remain to be seen, it does appear that all official investigation is converging on one point and claiming Guccifer 2.0 is Russian.
[Image via leolintag/Shuttershock]
