2016 Democratic National Committee email leak

The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails leaked to and subsequently published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States' Democratic Party.[1] The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from January 2015 to May 2016.[2] The leak prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the Democratic National Convention.[3] After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.[4]

WikiLeaks did not reveal its source; a self-styled hacker going by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the attack. Cybersecurity firms and American intelligence officials stated "high confidence" that Russian intelligence services were responsible.[5] On July 25, 2016, the FBI announced that it would investigate the hack.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] The same day, the DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters, stating, "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," and that the emails did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process."[13] On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.[14]

Responsibility

A self-styled hacker going by the moniker "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the source of the leaks;[15][16] WikiLeaks did not reveal its source.[17] Cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant, SecureWorks, and ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, stated the leak was part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian intelligence groups.[18][19][20][21][22][23] U.S. intelligence agencies also stated (with "high confidence"[5]) that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC, according to reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post.[5][24][25][26][27]

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said that there was no proof that Russia was behind the attack,[28] and the Russian government said it had no involvement.[29]

On October 7, 2016, the United States Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that the US intelligence community was confident that the Russian government directed the breaches and the release of the obtained or allegedly obtained material in an attempt to "… interfere with the US election process."[30][31][32]

Contents

The leak revealed information about the DNC's interactions with the media, Hillary Clinton's and Bernie Sanders' campaigns, and financial contributions. It also includes personal information about the donors of the Democratic Party, including credit card and Social Security numbers, which could facilitate identity theft.[33][34] In a tweet, WikiLeaks stated "Just to be clear. It isn't an error."[35]

Media

The emails include DNC staff's "off-the-record" correspondence with media personalities, including the reporters at CNN,[36][37][38] Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.[17]

Bernie Sanders' campaign

In the emails, DNC staffers derided the Sanders campaign.[39] The Washington Post reported: "Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically, all of these examples came late in the primary—after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory—but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage."[40]

In a May 2016 email chain, the DNC chief financial officer (CFO) Brad Marshall told the DNC chief executive officer, Amy Dacy, that they should have someone from the media ask Sanders if he is an atheist prior to the West Virginia primary.[40][41] In another email, Wasserman Schultz said of Bernie Sanders, "He isn't going to be president."[39]

On May 21, 2016, DNC National Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach sent an email to DNC Spokesman Luis Miranda mentioning a controversy that ensued in December 2015 when the National Data Director of the Sanders campaign and three subordinate staffers accessed the Clinton campaign's voter information on the NGP VAN database.[42] (The party accused Sanders' campaign of impropriety and briefly limited their access to the database. The Sanders campaign filed suit for breach of contract against the DNC; they dropped the suit on April 29, 2016.)[41][43][44] Paustenbach suggested that the incident could be used to promote a "narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never had his act together, that his campaign was a mess." (The suggestion was rejected by the DNC.) [40][41] The Washington Post wrote: "Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing negative information about one of its candidates."[40]

Debbie Wasserman Schultz's emails

In the aftermath of the Nevada Democratic convention, Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote about Jeff Weaver, manager of Bernie Sanders' campaign: "Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred".[45][46][47]

In May 2016, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski called on Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down over the DNC's bias against the Bernie Sanders campaign.[48][49] Schultz was upset at the negative coverage of her actions in the media, and she emailed Chuck Todd that such coverage of her "must stop".[50][51] Describing the coverage as the "LAST straw", she ordered the DNC's communications director to call MSNBC president Phil Griffin to demand an apology from Brzezinski.[52][53]

Financial and donor information

The New York Times wrote that the cache included "thousands of emails exchanged by Democratic officials and party fund-raisers, revealing in rarely seen detail the elaborate, ingratiating and often bluntly transactional exchanges necessary to harvest hundreds of millions of dollars from the party’s wealthy donor class. The emails capture a world where seating charts are arranged with dollar totals in mind, where a White House celebration of gay pride is a thinly disguised occasion for rewarding wealthy donors and where physical proximity to the president is the most precious of currencies."[54] As is common in national politics, large party donors "were the subject of entire dossiers, as fund-raisers tried to gauge their interests, annoyances and passions."[54]

In a series of email exchanges in April and May 2016, DNC fundraising staff discussed and compiled a list of people (mainly donors) who might be appointed to federal boards and commissions.[55] Center for Responsive Politics senior fellow Bob Biersack noted that this is a longstanding practice in the United States: "Big donors have always risen to the top of lists for appointment to plum ambassadorships and other boards and commissions around the federal landscape."[55] The White House denied that financial support for the party was connected to board appointments, saying: "Being a donor does not get you a role in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one. We’ve said this for many years now and there's nothing in the emails that have been released that contradicts that."[55]

Tim Canova

Among the emails leaked, around 80 contained information on Tim Canova, Debbie Wasserman Schultz's primary election opponent. The emails tracked Canova's campaign movements, flagged positive news reports about his campaign, asked RealClearPolitics to remove Canova's name from a headline, and asked the head of the Alaska Democratic Party to do "some digging" on a pro-Bernie Sanders event in the state that Canova took part in. After the leak, Canova announced that his lawyers were filing a Federal Election Commission complaint against Wasserman Schultz for her possible violation of campaign finance laws, due to the DNC allegedly acting as an arm of Wasserman Schultz's campaign, and for improperly using DNC funds and resources.[56][57]

Reactions

On July 18, 2016, Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that the Russian government had no involvement in the DNC hacking incident.[58] Peskov called it "paranoid" and "absurd",[59] saying: "We are again seeing these maniacal attempts to exploit the Russian theme in the US election campaign."[60] That position was later reiterated by the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, which called the allegation "entirely unrealistic".[61]

On July 24, 2016, Sanders urged Wasserman Schultz to resign following the leak and stated that he was "disappointed" by the leak, but that he was "not shocked."[22][62] Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, called for greater accountability in the DNC, calling Wasserman Schultz "a figure of disunity" within the Democratic Party.[63][64] Later the same day, Wasserman Schultz resigned from her position as DNC Chairman, effective as of the end of the nominating convention.[65] After Wasserman Schultz resigned, Sanders said that she had "made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party."[66] On the following day, the DNC apologized to Bernie Sanders, his supporters, and the Democratic Party "for inexcusable remarks made over email."

On July 24, 2016, in an interview with NPR, former DNC Chair and current Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe said "... that the chair's job should be "to remain neutral." "I sat in that chair in 2004 trying to navigate all the different candidates we had. But if you had people in there who were trashing one of the candidates, I can tell you this, if I were still chairman they wouldn't be working there. I mean, that is just totally unacceptable behavior."[67]

On July 25, 2016, Anthony Zurcher, North America reporter for the BBC, commented that "the revelation that those in the heart of the Democratic establishment sought to undermine the anti-establishment Sanders is roughly on a par with [Casablanca character] police Capt Renault's professed shock that gambling was taking place in the Casablanca club he was raiding, as a waiter hands him his winnings."[68]

On July 25, 2016, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said that "Today's events show really what an uphill climb the Democrats are facing this week in unifying their party. Starting out the week by losing your party chairman over longstanding bitterness between factions is no way to keep something together." [69]

On October 14, 2016, NBC News reported that multiple sources were telling them that Barack Obama had ordered the CIA to present him with options for a retaliatory cyber attack against the Russian Federation for allegedly interfering in the US presidential election. Sources said that this is not the first time the CIA has presented such options to a president, but that on all previous occasions the decision was made not to carry out the proposed attacks.[70]

Media coverage and public perception

The New York Times reported that Julian Assange stated in an interview on British ITV on June 12, 2016, that he hoped that the publication of the emails would "... harm Hillary Clinton's chances to win the presidency..." and that he had timed the release to coincide with the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[5][71] In an interview with CNN, Assange would neither confirm nor deny who WikiLeaks' sources were; he claimed that his website "... might release "a lot more material" relevant to the US electoral campaign..." [72]

Following the publication of the stolen emails, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden criticized WikiLeaks for its wholesale leakage of data, writing that "their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake."[34] The Washington Post contrasted the difference between WikiLeaks' practices and Snowden's disclosure of information about NSA: while Snowden worked with journalists to vet documents (withholding some where it would endanger national security), WikiLeaks' "more radical" approach involves the dumping of "massive, searchable caches online with few—if any—apparent efforts to remove sensitive personal information."[34]

On July 25, 2016, Anne Applebaum, columnist for the Washington Post, writes that "... with the exception of a few people on Twitter and a handful of print journalists, most of those covering this story, especially on television, are not interested in the nature of the hackers, and they are not asking why the Russians apparently chose to pass the emails on to WikiLeaks at this particular moment, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. They are focusing instead on the content of what were meant to be private emails ..." She goes on to describe in detail other Russian destabilization campaigns in Eastern European countries.[73]

On July 25, 2016, Thomas Rid, Professor in Security Studies at King’s College, London, and non-resident fellow at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, DC, summed up the evidence pointing to Russia being behind the hacking of the DNC files and the "Guccifer-branded leaking operation". He concludes that these actions successfully blunted the "DNC's ability to use its opposition research in surprise against Trump...". [20] He further writes that data exfiltration from political organizations is done by many countries and is considered to be a legitimate form of intelligence work. "But digitally exfiltrating and then publishing possibly manipulated documents disguised as freewheeling hacktivism is crossing a big red line and setting a dangerous precedent: an authoritarian country directly yet covertly trying to sabotage an American election."[20]

Russian security expert and investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov said "It is almost impossible to know for sure whether or not Russia is behind a hack of the Democratic National Committee's servers". According to him, one of the reasons Russia would try to sway the US presidential election is that the Russian government considers Clinton "a hater of Russia": "There is this mentality in Russia of being besieged; that it is always under attack from the United States. ... They are trying to interfere in our internal affairs so why not try to do the same thing to them?"[74]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Karen Tumulty & Tom Hamburger (July 22, 2016). "WikiLeaks releases thousands of documents about Clinton and internal deliberations". Washington Post.
  2. ↑ Andrea Peterson (July 22, 2016). "Wikileaks posts nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails online". Washington Post.
  3. ↑ Martin, Jonathan; Rappeport, Alan (July 24, 2016). "Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign D.N.C. Post". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ "DNC CEO resigns in wake of email controversy". CNN. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked D.N.C.". New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  6. ↑ "FBI Investigating DNC Hack Some Democrats Blame on Russia". Bloomberg Politics. July 25, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Bears in the Midst: Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee »". June 15, 2016. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Findings from Analysis of DNC Intrusion Malware". Threat Geek. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  9. ↑ ""Guccifer" leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian's fingerprints on it". Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  10. ↑ Newman, Lily Hay (July 25, 2016). "Was Russia Behind the DNC Leaks? It Sure Seems Like It.". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Cyber researchers confirm Russian government hack of Democratic National Committee". Washington Post. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Threat Group 4127 Targets Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign". www.secureworks.com. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Democratic National Committee apologizes to Sanders over emails". Reuters. July 25, 2016.
  14. ↑ Uchill, Joe (November 7, 2016). "WikiLeaks releases new DNC emails day before election". The Hill. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  15. ↑ Uchill, Joe. "Evidence mounts linking DNC email hacker to Russia". The Hill. The Hill. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  16. ↑ Uchill, Joe (July 22, 2016). "WikiLeaks posts 20,000 DNC emails". The Hill (newspaper). Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  17. 1 2 "WikiLeaks' DNC Email Leak Reveals Off The Record Media Correspondence". SanFrancisco.cbslocal.com. July 22, 2016.
  18. ↑ Goodin, Dan. ""Guccifer" leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian's fingerprints on it". arstechnica. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
  19. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan; Conger, Kate. "Did Russian government hackers leak the DNC emails?". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  20. 1 2 3 Rid, Thomas. "All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack". Motherboard. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  21. ↑ "Wikileaks posts nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails online". Providence Journal. July 22, 2016.
  22. 1 2 "DNC email leak: Sanders calls for new leader as Clinton camp blames Russia". The Guardian. July 24, 2016.
  23. ↑ "DNC email leak: Russian hackers Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear behind breach". The Guardian. July 26, 2016.
  24. ↑ Ellen Nakashima, Is there a Russian master plan to install Trump in the White House? Some intelligence officials are skeptical, New York Times (July 27, 2016).
  25. ↑ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo. "How Hackers Broke Into John Pedestal and Colin Powell's Gmail Accounts". Motherboard. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  26. ↑ Rid, Thomas. "How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History". Esquire. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  27. ↑ Frenkel, Sheena. "Meet Fancy Bear". Buuzfeed. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  28. ↑ Alex Johnson, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: 'No Proof' Hacked DNC Emails Came From Russia, NBC News (July 25, 2016).
  29. ↑ Moscow denies Russian involvement in U.S. DNC hacking, Reuters (June 14, 2016).
  30. ↑ Nakashima, Ellen. "US government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with elections". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
  31. ↑ Ackerman, Spencer; Thielman, Sam. "US officially accuses Russia of hacking DNC and interfering with election". The Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
  32. ↑ CNN, Evan Perez and Theodore Schleifer. "US accuses Russia of trying to interfere with 2016 election". CNN. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  33. ↑ McCarthy, Kieren. "WikiLeaks fights The Man by, er, publishing ordinary people's personal information". The Register. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  34. 1 2 3 Andrea Peterson, Snowden and WikiLeaks clash over leaked Democratic Party emails, Washington Post (July 28, 2016).
  35. ↑ WikiLeaks (July 23, 2016). "@glamarre2 Just to be clear. It isn't an error." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  36. ↑ Joe, Concha (July 25, 2016). "Todd, Tapper respond to being named in leaked WikiLeaks DNC emails". The Hill (newspaper). Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  37. ↑ Wemple, Erik (July 24, 2016). "WikiLeaks emails: Pro-Clinton CNN political commentator pre-checked op-ed with DNC". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  38. ↑ Grynbaum, Michael M. (July 24, 2016). "Ego Clashes Exposed in Leaked Emails From Democratic National Committee". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  39. 1 2 Shear, Michael (July 22, 2016). "Released Emails Suggest the D.N.C. Derided the Sanders Campaign". New York Times.
  40. 1 2 3 4 Blake, Aaron (July 24, 2016). "Here are the latest, most damaging things in the DNC's leaked emails". The Washington Post.
  41. 1 2 3 "Leaked DNC emails reveal details of anti-Sanders sentiment". The Guardian. Associated Press. July 24, 2016.
  42. ↑ Haberman, Maggie; Corasanti, Nick (December 18, 2016). "Democrats and Berlie Sanders Clash Over Data Breach". The New York Times.
  43. ↑ Ben Jacobs, Democrats punish Bernie Sanders campaign following Clinton data breach, Guardian (December 18, 2015).
  44. ↑ Wagner, John (April 29, 2016). "Sanders campaign drops lawsuit against DNC stemming from December data-breach flap". The Washington Post.
  45. ↑ Man, Anthony (July 23, 2016). "Emails offer insights into Wasserman Schultz at DNC". Sun-Sentinel. Sun Sentinel.
  46. ↑ "Debbie Wasserman Schultz no longer presiding over Democratic convention". Fox News Channel. July 24, 2016. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  47. ↑ Carney, Jordain (July 22, 2016). "Wasserman Schultz called top Sanders aide a 'damn liar' in leaked email". The Hill (newspaper). Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  48. ↑ "Is the DNC Chair too divisive to unify the party?". MSNBC. May 25, 2016. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  49. ↑ Hains, Tim (May 18, 2016). "MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski Calls For DNC Chair To Step Down Over Bias Against Sanders". RealClearPolitics. Archived from the original on July 24, 2016.
  50. ↑ Callum, Borchers (July 25, 2016). "Emails show Debbie Wasserman Schultz pressured 'Morning Joe' — to no avail". Washington Post. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  51. ↑ Reisman, Sam (July 22, 2016). "Leaked Emails Show DNC Chair Told Chuck Todd Negative Coverage 'Must Stop'". Mediaite. Archived from the original on July 23, 2016.
  52. ↑ Jilani, Zaid (July 22, 2016). "DNC Staffers Mocked the Bernie Sanders Campaign, Leaked Emails Show". The Intercept.
  53. ↑ Norton, Ben (July 22, 2016). "DNC emails: Wasserman Schultz furiously pressured MSNBC after it criticized her "unfair" treatment of Sanders". Salon (website).
  54. 1 2 Eder, Steve; Confessore, Nicholas (July 25, 2016). "In Hacked D.N.C. Emails, a Glimpse of How Big Money Works". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  55. 1 2 3 Goodwin, Alec (July 26, 2016). "Leaks show DNC asked White House to reward donors with slots on boards and commissions". Center for Responsive Politics. Retrieved July 29, 2016. (republished at Huffington Post)
  56. ↑ Caputo, Marc (July 24, 2016). "Wasserman Schultz steps down as DNC chair". Politico.
  57. ↑ Iannelli, Jerry (July 24, 2016). "Leaked Emails Show DNC Staffers Keeping Close Eye on Tim Canova's Rise". Miami New Times.
  58. ↑ "Hacker Guccifer 2.0 claims new DNC data leak | Fox News". Fox News. July 18, 2016. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  59. ↑ "Amid FBI probe Russia denies it hacked Democrats' emails". Deutsche Welle. July 26, 2016.
  60. ↑ "Kremlin dismisses US Democratic email hack claims as 'absurd' and an 'old trick'". ABC News. July 26, 2016.
  61. ↑ "Media claims of Moscow's attempts to interfere in U.S. presidential campaign progress unfounded - Russian Embassy - Interfax". www.interfax.com. Interfax. Retrieved August 30, 2016.
  62. ↑ "Bernie Sanders Calls for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign in Wake of Email Leaks". ABC News. July 24, 2016.
  63. ↑ Drabold, Will (July 25, 2016). "DNC Apologizes to Bernie Sanders and Supporters". TIME.com. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  64. ↑ Parks, Maryalice (July 30, 2016). "Bernie Sanders Campaign Chief Says Someone Must Be 'Accountable' for What DNC Emails Showv". ABC News. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  65. ↑ Whitesides, John (July 24, 2016). "Democrats in disarray on eve of convention to nominate Clinton". Reuters. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
  66. ↑ "Sanders: Wasserman Schultz made 'right decision' to resign from DNC". The Hill. July 24, 2016.
  67. ↑ "Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As Democratic Chair After Convention". NPR. July 24, 2016.
  68. ↑ "US election: Email row claims Debbie Wasserman Schultz". BBC News. July 25, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  69. ↑ "Priebus and Manafort seize on Wasserman Schultz DNC resignation". The Guardian. July 24, 2016.
  70. ↑ Arkin, William M.; Dilanian, Ken; Windrem, Robert (14 October 2016). "CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia". NBC News. NBC News. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  71. ↑ Assange, Avowed Foe of Clinton, Timed Email Release for Democratic Convention," The New York Times, July 26, 2016.
  72. ↑ "Julian Assange: 'A lot more material' coming on US elections". CNN. July 27, 2016.
  73. ↑ Anne, Applebaum. "Connecting the dots: How Russia benefits from the DNC mail leaks".
  74. ↑ "'Pro-Kremlin youth groups' could be behind DNC hack". Deutsche Welle. July 27, 2016.
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