Clinton campaign: Russians are behind leaking DNC data
A top official with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Sunday accused the Russian government of orchestrating the release of damaging Democratic Party records to help the campaign of Republican Donald Trump — and some cybersecurity experts agree.
The extraordinary charge came as some national security officials have been growing increasingly concerned about possible efforts by Russia to meddle in the election, according to several individuals familiar with the situation.
Late last week, hours before the records were released by the website WikiLeaks, the White House convened a high-level security meeting to discuss reports that Russia had hacked into systems at the Democratic National Committee.
Although other experts remain skeptical of a Russian role, the hacking incident has caused alarm within the Clinton campaign and also in the national security arena. Officials from various intelligence and defense agencies, including the National Security Council, the Defense Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland
Security, attended the White House meeting Thursday, on the eve of the email release.
If the accusation is true, it would be the first time the Russians have actively tried to influence an election in this manner, analysts said.
Ms. Clinton’s campaign chief, Robby Mook, told ABC News on Sunday that “experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke in to the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through these websites. … It’s troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.”
Trump campaign officials rejected the suggestion as absurd.
The most sensational revelation so far in the emails is that officials at the supposedly impartial DNC were in fact helping Ms. Clinton during the primary. One email written May 5 to Luis Miranda, the national communications director for the DNC, from another party official suggests that the party could help Ms. Clinton by raising questions about Bernie Sanders’ faith. Other emails generally disparaged Mr. Sanders and indicated a preference for Ms. Clinton.
The emails have infuriated Sanders supporters, who have repeatedly accused the DNC of improperly helping the Clinton campaign during the primary. The episode prompted the resignation Sunday of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“They said they were neutral, which we knew not to be true,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. “Now we have evidence in black and white that they were trying to put out negative stories about Bernie Sanders. People are very angry about these leaks, and rightfully so. There’s no doubt about that.”
Beyond Mr. Mook, DNC and Clinton campaign officials have not responded to requests for comment Friday as reporters and unnerved campaign staff tried to assess the damage caused by the release, which comes just as the party holds a nominating convention in Philadelphia designed to project unity after a bitter primary season.
The emails were released Friday on Twitter by WikiLeaks. The document dump follows a report last month by The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the DNC, gaining access to an entire database of opposition research, among other material.
Other emails offered details of perks provided to party donors attending the convention and other events involving Democratic officials.
On Sunday, Mr. Mook and others noted that Mr. Trump has taken positions in the campaign that seem to align with those held by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. He cited Mr. Trump’s recent statement on NATO — that he might not provide assistance to member states that hadn’t contributed their financial share — as a sign that the Republican nominee is taking positions favorable to Mr. Putin.
“I think when you put all this together, it’s a disturbing picture and voters need to reflect on that,” Mr. Mook told CNN in an interview Sunday.
Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, flatly denied the insinuation, calling Mr. Mook’s comments “pure obfuscation” on ABC’s “This Week.”
“What they don’t want to talk about is what’s in those emails,” Mr. Manafort said.
Last month, the forensic firm CrowdStrike said two competing Russian intelligence hacker groups penetrated the DNC’s computers. In the past 24 hours, cybersecurity experts have said the email cache released by WikiLeaks on Friday appears to have been given to the anti-secrecy group by Russian intelligence.
Thomas Rid, a professor at Kings College London, said in an interview that in a private chat on Twitter on Saturday he communicated with the entity that claimed to have released the email cache to WikiLeaks.
The party, which calls itself Guccifer2, last month claimed responsibility for the DNC hack. Several independent analysts have concluded that Guccifer2, who claimed to be Romanian, is likely linked to Russia.
“We’ve been looking at this very closely from both the technical and non-technical spheres,” said Rich Barger, chief information officer for ThreatConnect, a cyber intelligence software firm. “Based on our analysis, we strongly feel Guccifer2 is linked to a Russian information operations campaign and is not the independent Romanian hacker that he claims to be.”
The apparent link to Russian intelligence raises troubling implications for U.S. foreign relations and national security. Russia has not to date tried to interfere in U.S. elections, analysts say. But if this is a deliberate effort by the Kremlin to meddle, it is worrisome, they say.
Mike Vickers, who served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence from 2011 to 2015, said an effort by the Russians to release intelligence in advance of a U.S. election is likely unprecedented.
“What is really new here is the attempt to influence the politics of the United States. That is the problem.”
Mr. Vickers said the Russians have attempted to influence elections in states closer to their border but that seeking to do so in the United States would represent a historic and significant change, even in an era when Russian intelligence gathering has become more aggressive.
Because he is no longer in government service, Mr. Vickers said he had no direct knowledge of the forensic evidence in the DNC email case. However, he said that “people who have looked at it have said it looks like groups that have been tied to Russian intelligence.”
Fiona Hill, a former Russia expert on the National Intelligence Council, said putting the emails out on WikiLeaks for the world to see is consistent with her view of the modus operandi of Mr. Putin and Russian intelligence.
“They’re doing what they do best,” said Ms. Hill, now a Brookings senior fellow. “They would not be doing their jobs as intelligence officers if they were not trying to outsmart their main opponent and to have influence on their politics.”
But, Mr. Rid, the Kings College professor, points out, “what we don’t know is whether this is a top-down order or not.”
Russian Embassy officials did not respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon. In the past, Russian officials denied any involvement with the hack.
“I completely rule out a possibility that the [Russian] government or the government bodies have been involved in this,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told the Reuters news agency in Moscow.