GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his supporters are questioning whether the FBI could have sifted through 650,000 emails quickly enough to clear his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, just nine days after they were discovered.
But the FBI and cybersecurity experts say it can be done with database scanning software – and one of those experts is none other than Edward Snowden, the fugitive whistleblower who’s hoping to get a presidential pardon.
The debate unfolded today in the wake of FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that a search through a laptop used by Clinton aide Huma Abedin turned up nothing to change “our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”
In other words, the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails remains closed, with no charges sought.
The news was met with relief from the Clinton campaign, and disbelief from Trump’s advisers – including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
Comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he cant possibly know.
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) November 6, 2016
IMPOSSIBLE:
There R 691,200 seconds in 8 days. DIR Comey has thoroughly reviewed 650,000 emails in 8 days? An email / second? IMPOSSIBLE RT— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) November 6, 2016
Trump himself voiced skepticism during a campaign stop in Michigan.
“Right now, she is being protected by a rigged system. It’s a totally rigged system,” he said. “I’ve been saying it for a long time. You can’t review 650,000 new emails in eight days. You can’t do it, folks.”
However, The New York Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official as saying that the FBI was able to finish scanning the emails over the weekend. Many of the emails were personal messages or duplicates of messages that had been examined previously, the Times quoted the source as saying.
How easy would it be to cull out the duplicate emails? Outspoken journalist Jeff Jarvis posed that question to Snowden in a tweet, and got a quick response:
Drop non-responsive To:/CC:/BCC:, hash both sets, then subtract those that match. Old laptops could do it in minutes-to-hours.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 7, 2016
Other Twitterers were equally as eager to set Trump and his supporters straight on the matter. Here’s a sampling:
This is the equivalent of an intern's overnight hackathon project at FB. Only they'd scan 691 million messages. Reminder: Earth is round. https://t.co/V3HabOfiMB
— Josh Williams (@jw) November 6, 2016
Eight days is more than enough time for the FBI to review 650,000 emails. Here's how: https://t.co/xDNgyH7XnE
— WIRED (@WIRED) November 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/JZdziarski/status/795405346651115520
How can a COMPUTER review 650,000 EMAILS in 8 DAYS?
How can a TOASTER make my BREAD warm?
How can a CAR go faster than a TEAM OF OXEN— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 6, 2016
TRUMP ON ELECTION NIGHT: "How did they count 120 million votes in only a few hours?" https://t.co/pKoTfHkKLl
— Simon Owens (@simonowens) November 7, 2016
Does this bring the campaign’s cyber-shenanigans to a close? Almost certainly not. Today Snowden called attention to yet another thing to worry about on Election Day:
Researchers just demonstrated how to hack the official vote count with a $30 card. Details: https://t.co/uhcLVd0yPg https://t.co/uIFOQVb5uu
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 7, 2016
Hacking voting machines: not that difficult. Hiding a secret deviation in votes from after-the-fact statistical analysis: nearly impossible.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 7, 2016