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| Demonstrators make their way around downtown, Monday, July 25, 2016, in Philadelphia, during the first day of the Democratic National Convention. On Sunday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., announced she would step down as DNC chairwoman at the end of the party's convention, after some of the 19,000 emails, presumably stolen from the DNC by hackers, were posted to the website Wikileaks. |
PHILADELPHIA
(AP) -- First came the hack, then the leak. Now, the Clinton and
Trump campaigns are fighting over Russia's role in the release of
thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails.
At
least one thing is clear: The email uproar is an unwelcome distraction
at the launch of the Democratic National Convention, inflaming the rift
between supporters of Hillary Clinton and primary rival Bernie Sanders
just when the party was hoping to close it.
As the Philadelphia convention got underway Monday, developments in the email story rolled out in rapid sequence:
Clinton's
campaign, citing a cybersecurity firm hired to investigate the leak,
blamed Russia for hacking the party's computers and suggested the goal
was to benefit Donald Trump's campaign.
Trump dismissed that idea as laughable, tweeting: "The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails."
Sanders
supporters certainly weren't amused. Irate, in fact, that the emails
confirmed their long-held suspicions the party had favored Clinton all
along.
The FBI announced Monday it was
investigating how the hack occurred, saying "a compromise of this nature
is something we take very seriously."
A look at the hack, the leak and the politics of the DNC email fracas:
THE HACK
Democrats have known about the hack since April, when party officials discovered malicious software on their computers.
They
called in a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, which found traces of at
least two sophisticated hacking groups on the Democrats' network, both
with ties to the Russian government.
Those
hacks vacuumed up at least a year's worth of chats, emails and research
on Trump, according to a person knowledgeable about the breach who
wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly.
The party publicly acknowledged the hack in June.
---
THE LEAK
On
Friday, the public got its first look at DNC emails when Wikileaks
posted a cache of 19,000 internal communications, including some that
suggested party officials had favored Clinton over rival Sanders during
the primaries.
It wasn't immediately clear how
WikiLeaks got the emails - and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange proudly
told Democracy Now! he'd never tell.
Was it from the Russians?
Clinton's
campaign didn't hesitate to make the connection, with campaign manager
Robby Mook saying cyber experts believed "Russian state actors were
feeding the email to hackers for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
Trump's
team went out of its way to dismiss the alleged Russian connection as
outlandish. Trump senior policy adviser Paul Manafort called the Clinton
campaign statements "pretty desperate" and "pretty absurd."
---
THE FALLOUT
Whatever the source, the fallout from the leaked emails was swift and dramatic.
Democratic
Party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned over the weekend
after Sanders' campaign pounced on a number of leaked emails that they
said showed that party officials had favored Clinton during the
primaries.
The disclosure set off devoted
Sanders supporters, who were already having a hard time moving past the
bitter primary battles to embrace Clinton as the nominee.
Sanders
told his delegates Monday that Wasserman Schultz's departure would
"open the doors of the party to people who want real change." But even
after Sanders urged his supporters to back Clinton, some were flashing
thumbs-down signals and waving signs that said, "not Hillary, not
Trump."
---
A BROMANCE?
The email controversy raised new questions about Trump's foreign policy views with regard to Russia.
Clinton
campaign chairman John Podesta suggested there was "a kind of bromance
going on" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. Or "maybe
it's simply just a mutual admiration society," he told MSNBC.
The
Clinton campaign says Russia favors Trump's views, especially on NATO.
Trump himself has spoken favorably about Putin as someone he could
negotiate with.
Trump supporters did succeed
in preventing a reference to arming Ukraine from getting into this
year's platform, but the document is far from pro-Russia. It accuses the
Kremlin of eroding the "personal liberty and fundamental rights" of the
Russian people.
---
WISHFUL THINKING
Clinton
loyalists were eager to put a period on the latest email episode.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic
Party, said Monday "we're done" with the controversy. But Sanders'
delegates didn't seem ready to move on. And there may be more shoes to
drop: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said U.S.
officials expect more cyber threats against the campaigns.
---
EMAIL JINX
Clinton
just can't stay out of hot water when it comes to email. The latest
controversy serves as an unwelcome reminder of Clinton's earlier
problems with her handling of classified email as secretary of state.
In
case anyone failed to make the connection, Trump was happy to tweet a
reminder: "Here we go again with another Clinton scandal, and e-mails
yet (can you believe)."
