Seems obvious that leaks assisting the pro-Putin candidate were not altruistic.
If you want to assume there were also some dirty Trump secrets that didn't come out then it seems like the only way to "level the playing field" would be for e.g. Venezuela to hack the Republicans and air their dirty laundry too.
And people are running around saying how terrible this is and asking "what if everybody did this?" But it seems like the answer to that question is, then people would know more relevant information about their political candidates. Or politicians would get better at computer security. Which of those is supposed to be bad?
Those are two rather incredulous assumptions considering that:
- Clinton released all of her tax returns, whereas Trump didn't release any
- The Clinton Foundation has been audited by at least three well respected, independent, organizations (garnering top ratings from all), whereas we know comparatively little about the Trump Foundation (or whatever it's called), yet it's admitted within the last six months to several inappropriate expenditures or donations, and is likely being investigated for more
- Trump sits atop a network of literally hundreds (if not thousands) of "independent" corporations designed solely to evade disclosure, liability, taxes or some combination thereof
https://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016...
Look at figure 7, Clinton media coverage 84% negative in tone, twice the ratio as Trump's!
Now compare that to the many millions worth of free coverage that Trump got, because he knew how to exploit the media's lust for controversy.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/26/study-confirms-netwo...
100 minutes of Clinton emails vs. 32 minutes of policy issues for all candidates combined - who do you think benefits from that, the candidate with realistic policy proposals, or the one who wants solve all problems by building a wall?
Second, how exactly was a level playing field created by leaks that targeted a single party and candidate? Was there some demonstrable advantage HRC and the DNC possessed versus GOP candidates and the RNC, which was neutralized in a fair fashion by the leaks, thus creating an equitable and balanced standing among all the parties and candidates? That seems to require quite a lot of evidence and explaining.
Third, I don't think there has been any stated allegations from the Obama administration or intelligence services regarding hacking voting machines and tallies. I realize some people are suggesting it without any evidence being out there. But the administration doesn't appear to be making those claims from all I've read so far. That's a wholly different issue that would require an incredible amount of organization, effort, and evidence proving it occurred. "Hacking the election" seems to almost be used as a bit of a colloquialism, more akin to "life-hacking", and where administration officials are concerned, specifically focused on the data breaches and leaks in an effort to "life-hack" the election through creative social and political engineering, not manipulating voting tabulations. However, voting machines != electoral process. They are merely the mechanism by which the process culminates in a decision. The machines can be entirely sound, while the process can be hacked and manipulated.
Also, a couple of nitpicks:
- It's the Democratic Party, not Democrat Party. It's members are called Democrats, not the party itself.
- In this instance, you wanted to use "lesser" not "lessor".
In my opinion, the DNC emails and the Trump "grab 'em" tapes are similar -- you can argue that it's private material that should've stayed that way, but you can't argue that the material didn't reveal helpful truths about the candidates.
Finally, a recent poll found 50% of Democrats think that Russia tampered with the vote tallies in the election. This is insane, and the direct result of mainstream media irresponsibly using the phrase "hacked the election" to refer to the (alleged) hacking of DNC emails by Russia.
Fake news.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/30386...
>"If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee of the party and the Russians hacked my emails instead of John [Podesta]’s, we'd be reading all these notes between Donna and I and they'd say Donna was cozying up to the Bernie campaign. This is taken out of context. I found her to be a fair arbiter, I think she did a good and honest job."
Turns out they weren't even debate questions:
http://www.nbcnews.com/card/top-sanders-aide-defends-dnc-cha...
Sanders didn't say that. (Read your link. It's an aid running interference.)
Donna did leak debate questions. Here's an email from Donna Brazile. The subject is "From time to time I get the questions in advance".
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43962
The email contains the exact text of the question submitted to a CNN producer in advance of the town-hall by a moderator; it is very similar to the final question that ended up being asked.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/roland-martin...
Aide representing Sanders. Distinction not relevant at all.
>town-hall by a moderator
The real question is whether Sanders' camp got the same email. The statements made by his aide suggests they did.
Is there any evidence to suggest that the DNC was singled out for attack? We should be careful not to fall victim to pernicious media spin. The claims laid out in the Grizzly Steppe report are very specific:
1. In summer 2015, an APT29 spearphishing campaign directed emails containing a malicious link ...
2. ...to over 1,000 recipients, including multiple U.S. Government victims.
3. In the course of that campaign, APT29 successfully compromised a U.S. political party.
We know in retrospect that the compromised party was the DNC, but the claims presented do not indicate that the DNC was the only target. Although this is how good boys and girls are supposed to interpret the evidence, since many news media sources are spinning this as "Russia hacked the electoral process for a Trump victory", we can't start from that conclusion and work backward. Claim #2 in particular seems to indicate that the attack was broad and indiscriminate, with government and non-government targets alike.
Consider also what isn't said in this report. If they could say that the hacker groups singled out the DNC for attack, they would say so. That no such claim is made indicates that the authors know otherwise.
Finally, we have this:
4. In spring 2016, APT28 compromised the same political party, again via targeted spearphishing.
This is a separate group from the one in the previous claims. What they do not speak to is the question of who else was attacked or compromised.
Intelligence and counterintelligence is an endless game of cat and mouse that has been played for millenia. Any indication you can glean on who the next leader of the world's #1 power will be is priceless information, so none of us should be the least bit surprised that any of this is going on or that political parties would be the target of hacking attempts in an election year, by Russia, or any other nation.
Russia putting a targeted hit only on the DNC to swing the election specifically in favor of one candidate is an extraordinary claim and this report doesn't clear the bar IMHO. A far more likely hypothesis is that all renowned political organizations are a target for hacking at all times, and the DNC just had shitty security and got compromised. Too bad. Maybe turn on 2FA next time, and stop storing Top Secret material on your home server. (Even my little unknown personal server gets thousands of login attempts from China every day.)
None of the emails on Clinton's email servers were ever compromised, or at least we have no reason to believe they were because no one leaked them.
>Russia putting a targeted hit only on the DNC to swing the election specifically in favor of one candidate is an extraordinary claim and this report doesn't clear the bar IMHO.
This report wasn't meant to provide any evidence of anything.
I didn't say the DNC was singled out for attack. I said the leaks targeted them specifically. It's an intentional and notable distinction.
But they didn't do any of that either. It's amazing how out of control this narrative has gotten. And this is precisely why we can't justify these sorts of intrusions so close to an election, the stories become such distorted pictures of reality which is antithetical to to rational decision making.
They most certainly did. DWS and company actively worked internally to disparage and scuttle the Sanders campaign and push HRC, ultimately resulting in DWS resigning in shame. The DNC leadership's bias was obvious, and the leaked emails that came out before the convention provided sufficient evidence that Sanders' supporters had been right about the DNC not playing fair with the candidates (though still not rigging the primaries). I don't think the narrative about the DNC's pro-Clinton/anti-Sanders bias and internal activity ever got out of control. Seems it stayed pretty level, and it's ultimately a separate matter from the current issue as far as I'm concerned anyway.
Such as? Further, one person leaking emails is a far cry from "the DNC" being against him. You cannot blame the organization for actions of individuals.
>act of writing and discussing the contents of those emails
But it is absurd to be upset by internal discussions that resulted in no action against the Sander's campaign. When I ask for what action the DNC took as an organization, it is in this manner that I am asking the question. Internal emails does not constitute "actively working against the Sanders campaign". Such a characterization is blatant dishonesty.