NY Times: FBI Delayed Russian Probe to Focus on Hillary's Emails

The FBI last summer was more concerned with its investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server than with Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee's accounts during the election, and as a result, it took several months before the FBI discussed the breach with the DNC, a new report states.

The DNC's computer system was hacked while agents were investigating Clinton's email server, which was one of the largest news stories as she began her presidential campaign in late 2015, The New York Times reported in an extensive article on Saturday.

Even though the DNC breach appeared to have been conducted by Russian hackers, several other entities, including think tanks, universities and political organizations on both sides of the aisle also had been hacked. So the DNC hack did not raise alarms that there was meddling occurring in the election.

But months later, the DNC and the FBI met to discuss the hacks, and more than a year later, the government concluded that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, had a plan to meddle in the election.

The FBI, along with two congressional committees, are investigating Russia's role in the election, but Clinton and other Democrats claim FBI Director James Comey and his agency brought about their election loss by waiting too long to focus on Russia over the email server scandal.

In addition, only a week before the November election, Comey announced he was restarting the FBI's investigation into Clinton, as more new emails had been discovered.

Further, just before the November election, still more emails guaranteed to embarrass the Democratic candidate were about to be released.

The night of Oct. 7, after then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. accused Russia of waging a cyber operation to disrupt the election, WikiLeaks posted thousands of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's private account.

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