Hillary’s nightmare: ‘Not a coincidence’ agency has ‘Guccifer,’ warns source
(Fox
News) – The extradition of Romanian hacker “Guccifer” to the U.S. at a
critical point in the FBI’s criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s
email use is “not a coincidence,” according to an intelligence source
close to the case.
One
of the notches on Guccifer’s cyber-crime belt was allegedly accessing
the email account of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, one of
Clinton’s most prolific advice-givers when she was secretary of state.
It was through that hack that Clinton’s use of a personal account — clintonemail.com — first came to light.
Former
law enforcement and cyber security experts said the hacker, whose real
name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, could – now that he’s in the U.S. – help the
FBI make the case that Clinton’s email server was compromised by a
third party, one that did not have the formal backing and resources of a
foreign intelligence service such as that of Russia, China or Iran.
“Because
of the proximity to Sidney Blumenthal and the activity involving
Hillary’s emails, [the timing] seems to be something beyond curious,”
said Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal
Investigative Division from 2012-2014.
On Tuesday,
Lazar appeared in an Alexandria, Va., federal courtroom for his
detention hearing, attended by Fox News. He faces a nine-count federal
indictment on computer hacking charges and, according to both Romanian
and U.S. officials, is expected to be in the country for 18 months.
A
spokesman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office, which led the Guccifer
investigation, had no comment on the extradition, the timing, and any
potential intersection with the Clinton email probe.
On
or about March 31, Lazar was extradited 3,700 miles to Alexandria from a
prison in Arad, Romania, where he has been serving a seven-year
sentence for hacking crimes committed in his native country. His targets
in Romania were prominent government officials and political figures
whom he often taunted under the name of Micul Fum or “Little Smoke.”
Following
his 2014 conviction, Lazar was effectively neutralized in prison and no
longer a threat, which makes his transfer to the U.S. all the more
noteworthy.
The
44-year-old entered the Alexandria courtroom wearing a green jumpsuit,
with the yellow word “PRISONER” stenciled on the back. Lazar appeared
confident and relaxed during the four-minute appearance, telling the
court he did not need the translator provided for the hearing.
According
to the 15-page federal indictment, Lazar “specialized in gaining
unauthorized access to the online accounts of high-profile individuals”
including Clinton ally Blumenthal, who appears to be identified as
“Victim 5 ... a journalist and former presidential advisor who was the
true owner of an AOL account with subaccounts known to the grand jury.”
The
indictment went on to note that using his alias of Guccifer on
Blumenthal’s account, “Lazar attempted to conceal his identity by
accessing the account from a proxy server located in Russia.”
In
early 2013, news outlets including Russia Today and The Smoking Gun
published memos from Guccifer, with excerpts of exchanges between
Blumenthal and Hillary Clinton about Libya including details following
the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
In
a 2015 prison interview from Romania with reporter Matei Rosca for
Pando.com, Lazar told Rosca that, “I used to read [Clinton's] memos for
six or seven hours ... and then do the gardening.”
From
London, Rosca told Fox News he is still in touch with Guccifer’s
family, including his wife Gabriela. They “lived poor in a dusty town
outside Arad. He did not profit from hacking,” he said.
Rosca
emphasized that, “Guccifer has no programming skills and guessed
passwords of prominent public figures after reading their biographies.”
These included books written by Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell and former
president George W. Bush, who were also victimized by Guccifer’s
hacking.
“[Lazar]
is a simple and delusional man who has a conspiratorial streak and
perhaps wasn’t aware of the damage he was causing. His wife and daughter
are back in Romania worrying about him and they have not received a
phone call yet since he has been in the U.S.”
Rosca
said Lazar also claimed to have stashed “unpublished hacked material in
the cloud, some of it relating to the Middle East. ... He said he was
expecting to collaborate with U.S. security services when the time is
right. Presumably that would be now.”
Cybersecurity
and terrorism expert Morgan Wright told Fox News, “My question is, why
now – why just these cases, and why was it so important to bring him [to
the U.S.]? I go back to what’s in common, and that’s the exposure.”
The
Romanian government told Fox News that the request to extradite Lazar
came from the FBI, but when Fox News asked when the process began, a
government spokesperson said they were not authorized to comment
further.
Romanian
media have reported the request came on or about Dec. 29, 2015. That
would have been shortly after the intelligence community’s
identification of emails beyond “top secret” on Clinton’s personal
server, which became public in mid-January.
Clinton’s
deliberate choice to use a private, unsecure server based in her home
and a private email address for her government business as secretary of
state remains under federal investigation by the FBI while she campaigns
for president. It has been widely reported in the last month that the
FBI is setting up interviews with Clinton and her associates, what is
believed to be a final phase in the process.
The
FBI declined comment on the case, and the timing, as did
representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District
of Virginia and his court-appointed federal public defender, Shannon
Quill.
Hosko,
who is not part of the current email probe, read the Guccifer
indictment and told Fox News that Guccifer’s technical skills and intent
“show the relative ease of getting very close to someone in a high
place in government. Not only Hillary Clinton, but Colin Powell and
George W. Bush. ... It’s important on a couple of levels. Here is an
individual in a relatively poor Eastern European country who was able to
intrude on sensitive emails about activities in Benghazi.”
While
imprisoned in Romania, Guccifer reportedly met with the FBI, members of
the Secret Service and members of Cyber Command to discuss how he
accessed and read memos marked “official use only.”
Hosko
noted that commitment of resources by the FBI to extradite Guccifer to
the U.S. with the cooperation of Romania is significant.
A
review of recent federal cases by Fox News found that Guccifer’s
extradition appears to be an outlier. Hackers typically are extradited
in the event of major financial theft, such as a 2013 case where three
Romanian men stole in excess of $2 million in a cyber-fraud ring – and
not in cases involving a breach of personal privacy.
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