A new essay sheds light on a potentially glaring cybersecurity hazard in the 2016 campaign for Hillary Clinton, a group which fell victim to one of the biggest political cyberthefts of all time.
Near the end of an essay published Friday, New York Times writer Amy Chozick reveals something she claims to have never told anybody before while covering the Clinton campaign.
“I never told anyone this, but one time when I’d been visiting the Brooklyn campaign headquarters I found an iPhone in the women’s room,” Chozick wrote in the piece adapted from her forthcoming book, “Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.” “I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to belong to Mr. Podesta’s assistant because when I picked it up, a flood of calendar alerts for him popped up.”
She was referring to John Podesta, who served as chairman of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
After inspecting the device, Chozick claims she left it in the restroom and didn’t share her finding for fear of retribution.
“I placed it on the sink counter, went into the stall, came out and washed my hands. I left the phone sitting there, worried that if I turned it in, even touched it again, aides would think I had snooped. This seemed a violation that would at best get my invitation to the headquarters rescinded and at worst get me booted off the beat for unethical behavior,” she wrote.
Podesta’s Gmail account was hacked in March 2016, and his emails were later leaked by WikiLeaks during the campaign. An assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded there were no “evident forgeries” in the stolen emails, which were also taken from the Democratic National Committee.
An Associated Press assessment published in November 2017 found that the Russian group hacking known as Fancy Bear was behind the Podesta breach, using a phishing email.
Coinciding with the publication of Chozick’s essay Friday, in which she recounts Clinton saying on election night 2016, “‘They were never going to let me be president,” the DNC sued WikiLeaks, along with the Trump campaign and Russia, alleging they conspired to tip the scales of the 2016 election against Clinton.
