Lickerman Web site probe ended after '06 election

Of course, smells politically motivated... And that state and constituent should demand a independent investigation.


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."
In a statement released last week, Blumenthal said his office never saw or read the FBI e-mail until its contents were reported by The Advocate.

"Even when we work cooperatively, the FBI never shares such internal documents with my office, a practice and policy we respect given our very different roles and responsibilities," Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal, a Democrat, said his investigation into the joe2006.com crash "was active and ongoing" until December 2006.

"Throughout the investigation there were discussions between my office and the U.S. attorney's office regarding the direction of the federal investigation but not any conclusion until after the election," Blumenthal said. "To have made any premature public predictions before our investigation ended . . . would have been irresponsible and improper."

Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said in a statement that the office updated the Lieberman campaign and Blumenthal on the investigation in late October 2006.

"In accordance with our usual practice . . . the Lieberman campaign, as the alleged victim, and the office of attorney general, which had been conducting a contemporaneous investigation . . . were provided with limited information," Carson said. "The investigation was administratively closed several weeks later."

Tom Swan, Lamont's former campaign manager, said Carson's response is alarming.

"They acknowledge letting the Lieberman campaign know and never letting anybody from the Lamont (campaign) know," Swan said.
Federal authorities sat on the FBI e-mail for political purposes, Swan said.

But Jeffrey Meyer, a formal federal prosecutor working out of New Haven, said the information was not released because the Lamont campaign never asked. Meyer, who now teaches law at Quinnipiac University, was a federal prosecutor from 1995 to 2004.

Swan acknowledged that the Lamont campaign did not check the status of the joe2006.com investigation in the run-up to the November election, thinking the charges were "thoroughly debunked . . . on primary day." More on the story.