I don’t know who actually hacked the DNC email server and sent John Podesta’s emails to Julian Assange . . . and I doubt the best minds of our intelligence do either. Frankly, I doubt it even matters who did the hacking. What matters – and not much – is that Podesta and/or the DNC didn’t bother to place sufficient safeguards on their server to prevent hacking. It doesn’t matter much because most of the 20,000 emails were just run-of-the-mill day-to-day minutiae of a normal campaign. I tried going through those emails until I became bored out of my skull.
Voila! Someone actually did find some juicy tidbits, though. The BBC reported there were 18 interesting emails that cast light on some questionable dealings of the Clinton campaign. They must have had dozens of people poring over these emails on overtime to actually find these tidbits, but what they did find is moderately interesting.
Some of the emails did reveal a bit of infighting in the Clinton campaign. But those looking for a smoking gun on the relationship between the Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation weren’t going to find it here, although I did find many emails relating to the Clinton Foundation.
Podesta’s emails did show that Hillary did receive the CNN debate questions in advance from Donna Brazile. The emails also showed New York Mayor Bill De Blasio was having a hard time defending Hillary’s refusal to release the contents of her speeches to Wall Street bankers.
While these are not real scandal quality, they do give some insight into how Clinton and the DNC ran their campaign. I’m not saying Trump did any better, but we will never know because his emails didn’t make it to Wikileaks.
Did the Russians do it? Well, if they didn’t the Chinese would have. Here’s an excerpt from Politico of one of the leaked emails:
Chelsea Clinton confessed to John Podesta that her technology was "compromised" during a trip to China, according to a hacked email published Monday by WikiLeaks.
According to the message, Clinton in late 2011 wanted Podesta — formerly Bill Clinton's chief of staff and currently Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman — to meet with her mother's inner-circle the week of Thanksgiving.
After a couple of days corresponding, Podesta didn't respond to the former First Lady's daughter for about a week, according to an email chain released as part of the latest batch of purported messages from Podesta's Gmail account that WikiLeaks has been dumping each day.
"Sorry for the delay. I was in China and not accessing this account for security reason," Podesta replied on Nov. 20.
"That makes good sense to me," Clinton replied.
"Our technology was all compromised while we there (if we've time, I'll regale you with rather hilarious anecdotes of our tour guide cum spy). Hope you had a great trip."
The “technology” they were referring to is obviously email.
I’m not defending Wikileaks or Julian Assange. In fact, I believe Assange may be the devil incarnate. He has proven repeatedly to be highly anti-American in his dealings. What cannot be contested, though, is the accuracy of his leaked information. Even though neither Podesta nor anyone from the DNC will verify the contents of these leaked emails (surprise), they do not deny the accuracy.
So, someone hacked the DNC server and got John Podesta’s emails – 20,000 of them! We do know, because of these same emails that Podesta opened a Phishing attack email. Phishing is a fake email used to obtain your email password. Supposedly, he changed his password after this was revealed.
Did the Russians send the Phishing email; was it the Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, or some 14-year-old in his mother’s basement with his laptop? Does it matter?
What should matter is the contents of those emails more than the fact that they were hacked. Did these emails have any effect on the Presidential campaign? Given the contents of these emails, it would be asinine to believe they might have.
Then too, this was not some super sensitive government server or our power grid. It was a private email account on a private server – exactly like the ones Hillary used as Secretary of State.
