On Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee email hack saw a new data dump. The documents that were released included plenty of contact information, including Democratic vice presidential choice Tim Kaine’s personal cell phone. The documents were unveiled at a cybersecurity conference in London, and the party is calling these leaks “criminal acts,” as reported by NBC News.
The New York Times stated the new dump was conducted by Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0, who is believed to be linked to Russia. Security officials have been confident that Russia is behind these hacks and may be doing so to help Donald Trump win the presidency. While no emails were included in this round of dumps, the hacker seemed to focus on the inner workings of the party. Guccifer 2.0 released more than 670 megabytes of information including cell phone numbers and work emails for top Obama officials.
One of the documents released is a contact list on Kaine’s phone, entitled “Chairman’s Office,” which NBC News believes may have been a list of contacts Kaine created while at the DNC from 2009 to 2011. This new information could be used to access top White House officials’ information. Other information released includes early voter lists, redistricting plans, Federal Election Commission filings, and funnily enough, the DNC’s 2010 holiday card list. Perhaps they are trying to create a rift in the party with hurt feelings over not being on the holiday card list. But interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile said they are not taking these thefts lightly:
“The DNC is the victim of a crime: an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic Party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election. There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump.”
The Democratic party has been rocked pretty hard by these email leaks and seem to be scrambling to fire back. Just when they get back up, they get knocked down with another episode like this. It hasn’t done them any favors, as it has unmasked the inner workings of a party that was presumed to have its head on its shoulders, but has controversy simmering underneath.
(Via NBC News & The New York Times)
