FBI Director: There is no evidence that the Trump campaign or the RNC were 'successfully hacked'
The only Republican systems infiltrated by the Russians, Comey noted, were Republican state-level political campaigns and "old" email domains that the RNC was no longer using. While Russian hackers collected some information from these hacks, they did not publicly release what they stole, he told lawmakers.
"There was some limited penetration of old Republican email domains," Comey said. But there was no indication, upon examining current Republican National Committee servers, that they were successfully infiltrated by Russia.
The Democratic National Committee's communication department published a misleading tweet on Tuesday afternoon, claiming Comey had confirmed that Russia successfully hacked the RNC. The tweet linked to a video of Comey being asked whether the FBI had any indication that "any Republican systems targeted" by the Russians were successfully penetrated.
But Comey said only that "there were successful campaigns, particularly at the local and state level, on the Republican side of the aisle, and some limited penetration of old Republican National Committee domains."
The RNC's current domains, however, were not successfully infiltrated, Comey confirmed.
Incoming press secretary Sean Spicer, the RNC's former communications director, quipped in response to the DNC tweet that "your tweets are as bad as your IT security."
Comey noted that the same kind of phishing attempts were made on the old RNC domains as they were on the DNC, but that the Russians were only able to infiltrate the DNC.
"It's hard to say why, but similar techniques were used in both cases," Comey said.