FBI denied, straight out of Comey's mouth.
"The FBI requested direct access to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) hacked computer servers but was denied, Director James Comey told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The bureau made “multiple requests at different levels,” according to Comey, but ultimately struck an agreement with the DNC that a “highly respected private company” would get access and share what it found with investigators.
“We’d always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that’s possible,” Comey said, noting that he didn’t know why the DNC rebuffed the FBI’s request."
http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...ed-dnc-servers
It really comes down to who you believe, the FBI or the DNC.
I'm going with the FBI as the DNC was shown to be completely corrupt.
Here is a possibility:
The FBI asked for access a few times at one or two levels, and the requests were given to the wrong people, got misrouted, or lost in the middle of election turmoil.
Then, when the higher ups wanted an update, the underlings swore up and down they made really good efforts to get access to their superiors, who briefed the director.
Would this scenario be congruent with statements from the FBI that say they were denied access, and the DNC executive says he never was asked?
How have you eliminated this potential explanation that fits the available data?