The House Homeland Security chairman said Wednesday evening that Russian hackers broke into the Republican National Committee’s email server, but later backtracked after the party’s spokesman said it wasn’t true.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, broke the news to CNN host Wolf Blitzer after he was questioned about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions behind the country’s suspected breaching of Democratic groups’ servers.
“It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the DNC, but also the RNC. So they are not discriminating against the other,” McCaul said. “The Russians are basically — have hacked into both parties on the national level and so that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”
Soon after, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted, “Contrary to reports, there has been no known breech [sic] of @gop networks.”
Contrary to reports, there has been no known breech of @gop networks
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) September 14, 2016
Less than half an hour after he told Blitzer about the hack, McCaul’s office issued a statement explaining his error.
“I misspoke by asserting that the RNC was hacked. What I had intended to say was that in addition to the DNC hack, Republican political operatives have also been hacked,” McCaul said.
JUST IN from Sen. McCaul:
“I misspoke by asserting that the RNC was hacked…” pic.twitter.com/M7GPgbymJi
— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) September 14, 2016
