Trump Sought Help on DNC Conspiracy Theory Shot Down by DOJ
Asked Ukraine President Zelensky for an investigation of CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired to investigate the 2016 hacking of Democrats’ emails.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
In his July 25 phone call with the leader of Ukraine, President Trump seemed to doubt findings from CrowdStrike, the private security firm hired to investigate the 2016 Democratic National Committee email hack, that his own Justice Department eventually confirmed. The cybersecurity firm, which was hired by the DNC, found that Russian hackers breached the Democratic Party’s servers ahead of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion that was corroborated by the DOJ. But in his chat with Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump seemed to ask for an investigation into a conspiracy theory that there’s a missing server with information related to the hack.
“I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the call. “There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”
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