2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation.[1] These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016[2] and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States Democratic Party.[3] The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members dating from January 2015 to May 2016.[4] On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.[5] The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries.[6] These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.[7]
The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality,[8] as several DNC operatives openly derided Sanders's campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later reveals included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions.[9] The revelations prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[10] The DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters "for the inexcusable remarks made over email" that did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process."[11] After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.[12]
On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to prevent Hillary Clinton[13] from winning the presidency.[14] Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.[14] WikiLeaks did not reveal its source. Later Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, claimed that the source of the emails was not Russia or any other state.[15][16][17]
On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents of a group known as Fancy Bear alleged to be responsible for the attack,[1] who were behind the Guccifer 2.0 pseudonym which claimed responsibility.[18][19]
Perpetrators[edit]
Cybersecurity analysis[edit]
A self-styled hacker going by the moniker "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the source of the leaks;[46][47] WikiLeaks did not reveal its source.[27] When asked about Guccifer 2.0's leaks, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, "These look very much like they’re from the Russians. But in some ways, they look very amateur, and almost look too much like the Russians."[48][49] 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.[19][50][51][4][52][53] U.S. intelligence agencies also stated (with "high confidence"[54]) 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.[54][55][56][57][58]
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange initially stuck to WikiLeaks policy of neither confirming nor denying sources but in January 2017 said that their "source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,"[59][60] and the Russian government said it had no involvement.[61]
Comey testified that the FBI requested, but did not receive, physical access to the DNC servers.[62][63] According to Comey, the FBI did obtain copies of the servers and all the information on them, as well as access to forensics from CrowdStrike, a third-party cybersecurity company that reviewed the DNC servers.[63] Comey said that access through Crowdstrike was an "appropriate substitute" and called the firm a "highly respected private company."[63][62]
Guccifer 2.0 submission to WikiLeaks[edit]
A week after Guccifer 2.0 appeared online, WikiLeaks sent the persona a message saying to "send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing."[64] After not receiving a reply, on July 26, 2016 WikiLeaks sent another message that said "if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after." Guccifer 2.0 responded "ok ... i see," and WikiLeaks added "we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary ... so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting."[65][66] On July 14, 2016 Guccifer 2.0 sent WikiLeaks an email with an encrypted attachment labeled "wk dnc link1.txt.gpg."[67] According to the indictment, the email explained that "the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents."[64]
Four days later, WikiLeaks responded that it had received "the 1Gb or so archive" and would release the files that week.[64] The DNC emails were released several days later.
Reactions[edit]
On July 18, 2016, Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Russian president Vladimir Putin, stated that the Russian government had no involvement in the DNC hacking incident.[83] Peskov called it "paranoid" and "absurd",[84] saying: "We are again seeing these maniacal attempts to exploit the Russian theme in the US election campaign."[85] That position was later reiterated by the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, which called the allegation "entirely unrealistic".[86]
Then-Republican nominee Donald Trump said on Twitter: "Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes [sic], really vicious. RIGGED."[87]
The leak fueled tensions going into the 2016 Democratic National Convention: although DNC operatives initially denied accusations of bias, Sanders operatives and multiple media commentators cited the leaks as clear evidence that the DNC had been favoring Clinton and undermining Sanders.[87][88][52][89] Several media commentators have disputed the significance of the emails, arguing that the DNC's internal preference for Clinton was not historically unusual and was unlikely to have swayed the final outcome of the primary;[90][91][92] whereas many of Sanders's supporters viewed the revelations as symptomatic of an entrenched, unethical political establishment.[93][94]
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."[52][95] Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders's campaign manager, called for greater accountability in the DNC, calling Wasserman Schultz "a figure of disunity" within the Democratic Party.[96][97] Later the same day, Wasserman Schultz resigned from her position as DNC Chairman, effective as of the end of the nominating convention.[98] After Wasserman Schultz resigned, Sanders said that she had "made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party."[99] On the following day, the DNC apologized 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."[11] 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."[100]
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."[101]
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."[102]
After the emails were released, the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer informed the U.S. government that, in May 2016 at a London wine bar, Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos had told him that the Russian government had a large trove of Hillary Clinton emails that could potentially damage her presidential campaign. The FBI started a counterintelligence investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[103][104]
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.[105]