Russian intelligence officials who spearheaded the cyberattacks on the 2016 election reportedly targeted Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., at the beginning of her 2018 re-election campaign.
According to a forensic analysis by the Daily Beast, McCaskill, a Democrat and an outspoken critic of Russia, was targeted by Russia’s GRU intelligence agency in August 2017 through an email phishing technique. It is unclear if the attack was successful.
McCaskill is currently facing a tough re-election campaign in a state that President Trump won in 2016.
According to the report, the attack was launched around the time Trump urged Missouri voters to “vote her out of office” with a rally chant.
[Opinion: Trump’s tariffs are damaging Missouri’s economy and making Claire McCaskill look conservative]
In response, McCaskill released a statement calling the Russian hacking attempts “outrageous” and said she will “not be intimidated.”
“I’ve said it before and I will say it again, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a thug and a bully,” McCaskill wrote, shortly following the report.
McCaskill, responding to Daily Beast story that she was one of those targeted with an unsuccessful GRU phishing campaign, responds with a statement. pic.twitter.com/iudK3hraiZ
— Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) July 26, 2018
At this time, there is no corroboration of the claims made in the Daily Beast’s analysis. However, their findings coincidentally come shortly after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a dozen Russian intelligence officials for both hacking Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election.
