Lieberman Web site probe ended AFTER '06 election

[madinmaryland]

Or did it?

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/norwalkadvocate/ci_9010667

By Brian Lockhart
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/22/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

The U.S. attorney and state attorney general last week said they did not close their investigations into the crash of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 campaign Web site until after the November election that year.

The agencies were responding to an April 9 story in The Advocate that said the FBI cleared Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, of involvement in the crash of joe2006.com two weeks before Election Day.

The crash occurred the day before Connecticut's heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary. Lieberman lost to Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, but won the general election as a third-party candidate.

The Lieberman camp accused the Lamont campaign of hacking joe2006.com, and the story gained national attention.

Lamont and his backers are questioning why the FBI's conclusions were not released before the election to remove lingering suspicion about their involvement.

"I'd like to think those responsible for enforcement would have . . . stepped forward and cleared our name on a timely basis," Lamont said.

Then-U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, Kevin O'Connor, and the FBI launched a criminal investigation, and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal conducted a civil probe.

In December 2006, The Advocate inquired about the status of the cases, and O'Connor and Blumenthal said the Lamont campaign was exonerated. But neither would explain what caused the problems with joe2006.com, so the newspaper filed Freedom of Information requests for details.

The requests were forwarded to the U.S. Department of Justice and recently answered.
As The Advocate reported April 9, the FBI, in an e-mail dated Oct. 25, 2006, concluded the Lieberman camp was at fault for having a poorly configured Web site.

"The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack," read the e-mail from an unidentified staffer in the FBI's New Haven office. "New Haven will be administratively closing this investigation."

..snip

Why was this information held back?

:grr:

[navarth]

1. yeah I heard about this

something smells funny