Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said it was concerning that while testifying before the House Intelligence Committee earlier in the day at a hearing on the alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said his department’s offer to help the Democratic National Committee was denied.
Partial transcript as follows:
MACCALLUM: What struck you most about your conversation with Jeh Johnson today?
GOWDY: He is in a unique position to answer those questions. He is looking at what Russia was doing. What was the government’s response in 2016? He was the secretary of DHS at all relevant times. I was interested in what the Obama administration knew and when and what efforts they took to thwart the Russians, or to notify potential victims. You just played a clip where we had a victim, the DNC. Not only did they not cooperate with Jeh Johnson, they didn’t turn the server over to the FBI, I think it is a little ironic to now criticize, some Democrats are, Jeh Johnson and Jim Comey and others for not giving enough in 2016, when you had a really good piece of evidence you didn’t bother to turn over.
MACCALLUM: It’s really a head scratcher. When you take a look at it from that perspective—when you put yourself there, during the election, and you remember the emails that were leaked, very embarrassing for John Podesta, Neera Tanden. That was the main thing that Democrats pegged their election loss on. They said because these emails were released, they call it the Russian hacking, which is apapently where it came from. If you remember the content, it was embarrassing. At the same time, they were asked by the FBI and the DHS to give the servers up, let’s figure out who is getting into them and how. Why would they say no? Why would they not want to cooperate?
GOWDY: Let me hazard a wild guess. There may be something else on that server they didn’t want law enforcement to see? That is where you start. I don’t like speculating, but I have dealt in the past with victims that would not cooperate with investigations. Typically, the reason is, there is something else you don’t want law enforcement to see. There is no reason to not allow DHS to patch or fix a vulnerability in the DNC system. Heaven knows there is no reason to not give the world’s premier law enforcement agency, which is the FBI, the evidence they may need to stop another attack from hurting someone else.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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