Ex-Obama Intel Head: ‘Very Likely’ China, Russia Hacked Hillary’s Private Email Account

A former top intelligence official for the Obama administration believes that it is “very likely” that countries like China and Russia–and maybe even Iran and North Korea–hacked into Hillary Clinton’s private email account while she was secretary of state.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn–who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is the sister agency to the CIA, for the Obama administration–told Fox News’s Megyn Kelly on Monday that there is a “very high” probability that nations hostile the United States hacked into Clinton’s private server, which cybersecurity experts have determined had numerous security lapses. 

According to a Weekly Standard transcript of the exchange:

Kelly asked, “What do you think the odds are that the Chinese, the Russians hacked into that server and her e-mail account?”

“Very high,” Flynn said without hesitation. “Likely.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Likely. They’re very good at it. China, Russia, Iran, potentially the North Koreans. And other countries who may be ‘our allies’ because they can.”

The State Department never issued Clinton a more secure government blackberry. Politico recently reviewed photos from pool reports during Clinton’s tenure at the agency and determined that she used her less secure personal blackberry in countries like Vietnam, Brazil, and South Korea.

Cybersecurity experts said that “the risk of targeted theft of an official’s data is greatest in nations with telecoms that are owned or largely controlled by the government” because “state-aligned hackers could pull any unencrypted data, such as the metadata connected with a phone call, straight off the cell towers.” Politico noted that in Vietnam, for instance, “there’s a concern Chinese government hackers could pull information from the Vietnamese government-owned telecom — either through an intelligence-sharing agreement with Vietnam or because Vietnamese officials make little effort to keep Chinese spies out of their networks.”