Romanian hacker pleads guilty:

A Romanian computer hacker who revealed the existence of a private email server used by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state pleaded guilty to hackingrelated offenses, a US law enforcement official said on Tuesday.

Accused hacker Marcel Lazar, who used the alias “Guccifer,” entered a guilty plea at a hearing early on Wednesday before Judge James Cacheris in US District Court, Alexandria, Virginia, said the official.

He was indicted on charges including wire fraud, unauthorized access of protected computer, aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice.

The official and another person familiar with the Guccifer investigation, who asked not to be named ahead of the proceedings, said Lazar’s plea would not validate claims he has made in recent media interviews about successfully hacking the email server Clinton installed at her home in Chappaqua, New York. She used it to handle both official and personal message traffic when she was Secretary of State.

The two sources said the US investigation of Lazar turned up no evidence to support the hacker’s claims that he had broken into Clinton’s private server. Its contents and operations are the focus of an FBI investigation.

Lazar’s public defender, Shannon Quill, did not respond to a request for comment.

In an interview with NBC News before his extradition from Romania, Lazar claimed that Clinton’s private server “was like an open orchid on the internet.”

(RTRS)