Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) became the second elected official to publicly confirm the identity of the foreign entity that hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails. The other official is President Donald Trump.
Trump tweeted in August 2018, “Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier, etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!”
China denied Trump’s accusations through its foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. Chunying said at a regular briefing the day after Trump’s late-night tweet, “We are firmly opposed to all forms of cyber attacks and espionage.”
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Congressman Gohmert made it plain that China, not Russia, is who the intelligence community should have been investigating. He said, “ The Chinese ‘actually’ hacked Hillary Clinton’s personal server—as our intel community established without any question—even though the FBI refused to ever examine the evidence.”
Last July, Gohmert referred to a source he described as “a foreign entity unrelated to Russia” that the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) documented through forensic analysis.
We now know that foreign entity was not Russia.
The reason why it took so long for China’s name to appear as the chief culprit is found in who was assigned to determine who hacked Clinton’s emails.
When Gohmert questioned FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok in a committee hearing last year, he pressed Strzok on the matter. He noted that forensic analysis of Clinton’s emails conducted by the ICIG revealed that “virtually every email from Clinton’s server was sent to an unauthorized source.”
Gohmert didn’t let it stop there adding, “But you were given that information and you did nothing with it.”
It was later revealed in public testimony that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred the matter to the FBI. When asked by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) about the referral, Horowitz acknowledged it would be “curious” if the FBI officials did not investigate the lead.
Congressional interview transcripts show that ICIG investigator Frank Rucker and ICIG attorney Jeanette McMillian relayed the lead concerning a “foreign entity” to four FBI officials.
Those FBI officials were Section Chief Dean Chappell, Executive Assistant Director John Giacolone, Section Chief Charles “Sandy” Kable, Section Chief Charles “Sandy” Kable [unconfirmed], and Peter Strzok.
The ICIG’s Rucker told those FBI officials at that time that Clinton emails metadata suggested “a copy of every incoming and outgoing email that traversed the Clinton email server was sent to an unauthorized foreign actor.”
The matter was left to the FBI to investigate further.
It is noteworthy that by the time the FBI investigation concluded in July 2016, Strozk was the only one of those four that remained. Every official above him in the chain of command tasked with identifying the “foreign entity” was replaced before the investigation ended.
While the FBI regularly documented its meeting with the ICIG, the document trail disappeared after Strozk took charge.
Before Gohmert made his revelation last week, reports of China hacking Clinton’s server were all based on anonymous sources.
The Daily Caller quoted an unnamed source in 2018 who claimed the ICIG discovered the anomaly in Clinton’s emails early in 2015. That report claimed the FBI had three separate meetings with the ICIG on the matter. That has been officially confirmed.
All three meetings occurred before Strozk took charge.
Hopefully, Congressman Gohmert will keep pressing for answers. He’s one of only a handful of Republicans in Congress who seem to be interested in finding out who REALLY hacked our election.