The 2016 United States election leaks were a series of publications of more than 150,000 stolen emails and other files during the U.S. presidential election campaigns released by Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks and WikiLeaks. Computer hackers allegedly affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) infiltrated information systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta, and leaked some of the stolen materials. Emails from Guccifer 2.0 to journalists suggest a link to DCLeaks, and messages WikiLeaks exchanged with Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks suggest both submitted emails to WikiLeaks.
Guccifer 2.0 released Democrats' files related to their House of Representatives candidates in Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina, and documents stolen from John Podesta's mailbox and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's hacked personal computer. Guccifer 2.0 also gave reporters a password to access private files on DCLeaks and released information about Republican donors and opposition research about Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. DCLeaks released emails from Republican targets including the 2016 campaign staff of Arizona Senator John McCain, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. DCLeaks also released information about more than 200 Democratic lawmakers, the emails of the former NATO supreme commander in Europe and files from the George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
The emails and documents leaked from the Democratic Party's national committee (DNC) resulted in allegations that the DNC was biased against Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. The revelations prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her surprise loss in the general election against Donald Trump. Podesta's emails shed light on the inner workings of the Clinton campaign and suggested that CNN commentator Donna Brazile had shared audience questions with the Clinton campaign in advance of town hall meetings. The emails also contained excerpts from three Clinton speeches to Goldman Sachs and an internal campaign document cataloging potentially problematic portions of over 50 paid speeches.
On July 13, 2018, the Mueller special counsel investigation issued an indictment against 12 Russian GRU military officers; it alleged that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were part of a Russian military operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The indictment also alleged that the Russian operation provided the emails to WikiLeaks. Wikileaks said its source was not the Russian government or a state party and the Russian government said it had no involvement.
Guccifer 2.0
"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. The New York Times noted, "The seats that Guccifer 2.0 targeted in the document dumps were hardly random: They were some of the most competitive House races in the country."
The U.S. Intelligence Community and research firms concluded that some of the genuine leaks from "Guccifer 2.0" were part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian military intelligence groups, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is actually a persona created by Russian intelligence services to cover for their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Russian government denies involvement in the theft, and "Guccifer 2.0" denied links to Russia. On June 21, 2016, in an interview with Vice, "Guccifer 2.0" said he is Romanian. When pressed to use the Romanian language in an interview with Motherboard via online chat, "he used such clunky grammar and terminology that experts believed he was using an online translator." Linguistic analysis by Shlomo Engelson Argamon showed that Guccifer 2.0 is most likely "a Russian pretending to be a Romanian". WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Guccifer 2.0's leaks "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."
On June 14, 2016, according to The Washington Post, the DNC acknowledged a hack that was attributed to Russia and claimed by Guccifer 2.0 who released several hacked documents, including one from Podesta's mailbox, the next day.
In mid-July 13, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 released over 10,000 names from the DNC in two spreadsheets and a list of objectionable quotes from Sarah Palin. A few days later, Guccifer 2.0 gave The Hill exclusive access to numerous documents and files covering political strategies, including correlating the banks that received bailout funds with Republican Party and Democratic Party donations.
On July 22, 2016, the DNC emails were published by WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 tweeted that he was the hacker and WikiLeaks' source.
On August 15, 2016, a candidate for Congress allegedly contacted Guccifer 2.0 to request information on the candidate's opponent. Guccifer 2.0 responded with the requested stolen information. A week later, Florida GOP campaign advisor Aaron Nevins contacted Guccifer 2.0 and asked for material. Nevins set up a Dropbox account and Guccifer 2.0 transferred 2.5 gigabytes of data to it. Nevins analyzed the data and posted the results on his blog, HelloFLA.com, and sends Guccifer 2.0 a link. Guccifer 2.0 forwarded the link to Roger Stone.
On September 13, 2016, during a conference, a confirmed and remote representative of Guccifer 2.0 released almost 700 megabytes (MB) worth of documents from the DNC, which included personal and work email addresses and phone numbers for top Obama White House officials . According to British journalist Duncan Campbell, the Russian intelligence agency, GRU, tried to implicate Seth Rich as the source of the stolen DNC files in order to draw attention away from themselves. Datestamps on the DNC files released on September 13 were altered to show the data had been obtained on July 5, 2016, five days before Rich's death, and the time zone was changed to Eastern Time, within which Washington, D.C., falls. Based partly on their acceptance of the false dates, some experts then concluded that the emails had been copied in the DNC offices, and had not been hacked from outside.
On October 4, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 released documents and claimed that they were taken from the Clinton Foundation and showed "corruption and malfeasance" there. Security experts quickly determined that the release was a hoax; the release did not contain Clinton Foundation documents, but rather consisted of documents previously released from the DNC and DCCC thefts, data aggregated from public records, and documents that were fabricated altogether as propaganda. Singled out as particularly unrealistic was the idea that Clinton's team would have actually named a file "Pay for Play" on their own server, as Guccifer 2.0's screenshots of the alleged "hack" show.
DCLeaks
DCLeaks (also known as DC Leaks) was a website that was established in June 2016. It was responsible for publishing leaks of emails belonging to multiple prominent figures in the United States government and military. Cybersecurity research firms determined the site was a front for the Russian cyber-espionage group Fancy Bear. On July 13, 2018, an indictment was made against 12 Russian GRU military officers; it alleged that DCLeaks was part of a Russian military operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
According to the DCLeaks site's "About" page, their aim was "to find out and tell you the truth about U.S. decision-making process as well as about the key elements of American political life." They said they were "the American hacktivists who respect and appreciate freedom of speech, human rights and government of the people."
In late June 2016, Guccifer 2.0 gave reporters a password to access emails stolen from Democrats on the DCLeaks website.
On July 1, 2016, DCLeaks released the emails of four-star General Philip Breedlove, the former NATO supreme commander in Europe. The emails allegedly show that Breedlove sought to overcome President Barack Obama's reluctance to escalate military tensions with Russia over the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014.
On August 12, 2016, DCLeaks released roughly 300 emails from Republican targets, including the 2016 campaign staff of Arizona Senator John McCain, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, and 2012 presidential candidate and former Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. The release included 18 emails from the Illinois Republican Party. On the same day, DCLeaks released information about more than 200 Democratic lawmakers, including their personal cellphone numbers. The numerous crank calls that Hillary Clinton received from this disclosure along with the loss of her campaign's email security caused a very severe disruption of her campaign.
On August 15, 2016, DCLeaks released 2,576 files predominately related to George Soros' Open Society Foundation. The leak included the Foundation's internal work plans, strategies, priorities and other worldwide activities by Soros and showed the Foundation's support for Palestinian and pro-BDS causes, including Adalah.
On September 15, 2016, DCLeaks contacted WikiLeaks about a submission. The Mueller Report concluded the Podesta Emails were probably staged for transfer to WikiLeaks on September 19, 2016.
DNC 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. The DNC emails were published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Julian Assange said he had originally meant to release the emails on July 18, but WikiLeaks "had these hiccups that delayed us, and we were given a little more time." It wasn't clear who had given him time, and Assange argued that the recording was faulty.
The first batch included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States' Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.
The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality, as several DNC operatives openly derided Sanders' campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later revelations included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions. The revelations prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. 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." After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.
Guccifer 2.0 submission to WikiLeaks