FBI Had Alerted Illinois GOP About Possible Email Hack

The Illinois Republican Party’s executive director has revealed that months before the US Presidential election, FBI warned the party that its emails may have been hacked, and advised the organization to change its passwords, AP reports. The party later discovered 18 of its emails on DCLeaks.com, a site allegedly linked to the Russian military.

Unaware the FBI was conducting a deeper investigation into Russian hacking, the party had then found it "weird that the FBI was giving IT advice," said Nick Klitzing, the Illinois GOP's top official.

Klitzing’s statement comes in the wake of the CIA's conclusion of "high confidence" that Russia was behind the recent hacks surrounding the US Presidential election, with the intention of influencing the outcome in favor of Donald Trump.

Trump has dismissed the CIA's findings and Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus has maintained that the RNC was not hacked.

Read full story on AP.