Top Russian Officials Shift Away From Denying Involvement in DNC Hack
President Vladimir Putin says the emails’ content matters, not their source
By
Devlin Barrett and
Damian Paletta
Updated Oct. 12, 2016 4:35 p.m. ET
Russia's President Vladimir Putin said it was the information contained in the hacked emails, not the source of the hacking, that mattered, during a forum in Moscow on Wednesday. Photo: Metzel Mikhail/Zuma Press
WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation suspects Russian intelligence agencies are behind the recent hacking of the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and of a contractor handling Florida voter data, according to people briefed on the investigations.
Top Russian officials on Wednesday, meanwhile, shifted away from denying a role in a separate hack of the Democratic National Committee. President Vladimir Putinsaid it is irrelevant who stole the computer records, and the foreign minister said that the U.S. hasn’t proven anything so far.
The comments, made in separate public appearances, reflect an ambivalence among top Russian officials about accusations made Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow directed a hack-and-leak campaign aimed at interfering in the U.S. election.
“Everyone is saying, ‘Who did it?’” Mr. Putin said at an investor forum in Moscow. “But does it matter that much? It’s what’s inside the information that matters.”
Mr. Putin was referring to thousands of emails and other documents that have been leaked to the public since April, much of it stolen from the DNC or its affiliates. U.S. officials have accused Russia of stealing the emails and then using at least three entities, including WikiLeaks, to publish them on close to 50 separate occasions.
The FBI has been probing a number of computer breaches directed at various political and election entities, and the new details suggest a growing list of political targets for hackers, just weeks before a presidential election.
Last week, U.S. intelligence agencies said they are confident senior Russian officials had directed such activities, and that the stolen data was then leaked publicly through Wikileaks, an online persona called Guccifer 2.0, and a website called DCLeaks.com.
On Wednesday, Wikileaks posted another batch of emails from John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman. Investigators believe Russian intelligence is also behind the hack of Mr. Podesta’s emails, something he asserted Tuesday to reporters.
“I’ve been involved in politics for nearly five decades and this definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had a tangle with Russian intelligence agencies,” Mr. Podesta said.
Democrats say Mr. Putin is trying to meddle with the election to hurt Mrs. Clinton’s chances and benefit her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump has said he isn’t convinced there was any hacking, let alone evidence it was done by Russia.
Officials have previously said hackers penetrated voter data information in Illinois, and made a small inroad into a local voting system in Arizona. ABC News reported last week that hackers successfully targeted a contractor handling Florida election data. Florida officials have said their systems are secure.
Amid the growing concern about possible Russian interference in the U.S. election, the Department of Homeland Security is helping states scan their systems and advising them on better security. FBI Director James Comey has cautioned people not to be too alarmed by that, because the U.S. system of tallying votes is so decentralized and “clunky’’ that it would be very difficult to alter the outcome of an election.
“Hysteria started over the [allegation] that this is in the interests of Russia,” Mr. Putin said, according to a transcript posted by the Interfax news agency. “But nothing in it is in the interests of Russia, while the hysteria is merely caused by the fact that somebody needs to divert the attention of the American people from the essence of what was exposed by the hackers.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, responding to allegations about the hacking campaign in August, said Russia would “never interfere in the internal affairs of other countries,” but on Wednesday, in an interview on CNN, he didn’t deny involvement in the recent hacking operation.
“We did not deny this,” he said, but added, “They did not prove it.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Russia is orchestrating the hackings “to try to destabilize our democracy, and that’s something that obviously the president takes quite seriously.”
He dismissed Mr. Lavrov’s comments, saying, “I think a reasonable person would conclude that there is no piece of evidence the United States government could produce that would prompt Sergei Lavrov to admit Russian complicity in these efforts.”
On Tuesday, the White House said it would carry out a “proportional” response to Russia at some point in the future in response to the hacking operation. Mr. Lavrov didn’t seem worried.
“If they decide to do something, let them do it,” he said on CNN.
The Russian Embassy in Washington issued a statement over Twitter saying that “unbiased investigation of #DNChack would be a proportional (and logical) response to it. Threats or attacks against other countries are not.”
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com