Theory: Russian government officials hacked into the DNC email servers in order to help Trump get elected in 2016. The Trump campaign had knowledge of this illegal breach and supported it.
Best evidence:
April 29, 2016 to May 25, 2016: Julian Assange of Wikileaks receives leaked emails from Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers. Emails show that the DNC, and more specifically, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, undermined the Bernie Sanders nomination in the 2016 primaries. Roger Stone, connected to Donald Trump campaign, learns of Wikileaks possession of DNC emails: "Stone, an informal adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, said he had learned from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that his organization had obtained emails" (Washington Post March 13, 2018)
June 12, 2016: Julian Assange publicly announces on ITV that he has the DNC emails and is preparing to release leaked DNC emails in July after they are reviewed and prepared for the Wikileaks website. Julian Assange later (August 9, 2016) claims that the emails came from employees inside the DNC, particularly Seth Rich.
June 13, 2016: Alarmed, the DNC hires Alex Ionescu, an anti-Putin Romanian hacker working for CrowdStrike, to handle damage control for potential email leaks. Alex Ionescu uses his hacker experience in Romania to help create a hacker narrative. In December 2018, Alex Ionescu would expand his presence in his Romanian homeland with new CrowdStrike offices in Bucharest.
June 14, 2016: DCLEAKS.com (registered domain in Craiova, Romania) attempts to claim a role in the hacking of DNC servers. @dcleaks sent a direct message to @WikiLeaks, noting, "You announced your organization was preparing to publish more Hillary’s emails. We are ready to support you. We have some sensitive information too, in particular, her financial documents. Let’s do it together. What do you think about publishing our info at the same moment? Thank you." (Page 45, Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election)
June 14, 2016: Also, "Guccifer 2.0" as a fake persona, now appears in public, named after a Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel who had called himself "Guccifer". Marcel Lehel is well known to Alex Ionescu of CrowdStrike from his Romanian hacking experience. Marcel Lehel, the original Guccifer, said that Guccifer 2.0 is an American invention. On June 14 the Washington Post reports, citing CrowdStrike as their source, that Guccifer 2.0 is a fake persona created by Russia in order to hide the true Russian origins of the DNC hacking.
June 15, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 attempts to claim credit for the DNC hacking: "Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by “sophisticated” hacker groups. ... I’m very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy. ... Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton’s and other Democrats’ mail servers. But he certainly wasn’t the last. No wonder any other hacker could easily get access to the DNC’s servers. ... Shame on CrowdStrike: Do you think I’ve been in the DNC’s networks for almost a year and saved only 2 documents? Do you really believe it? ... Here are just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking into DNC’s network." Guccifer 2.0 releases internal DNC report document on Trump campaign and claims: "The main part of the papers, thousands of files and mails, I gave to Wikileaks. They will publish them soon."
June 27, 2016: Email from Guccifer 2.0 (guccifer20@aol[.]fr) using Russia-based "Elite VPN" reached out to The Smoking Gun (TSG) claimed to have Hillary "leaked emails" on DCLeaks, a "Wikileaks sub project". (Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, page 43)
June 2016: Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had Fusion GPS subcontract former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele to compile the dossier on Russia/Trump collusion. This document created a public stir and narrative around collusion. Later this document was found to be false.
July 10, 2016: Seth Rich, employee at DNC who Julian Assange fingered as the leak source of the May 2016 emails, was murdered execution-style in streets of DC (crime does not resemble a robbery) at about at 4:20 a.m., at Flagler Pl NW & W St NW, Washington, DC 20001 (2 miles from FBI van robbery earlier that night).
July 14, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 allegedly sends Wikileaks files of DNC emails (wk dnc link1.txt.gpg), the first transmission of data from Guccifer 2.0 to Wikileaks --- and this alleged transmission, if Guccifer 2.0 is connected to Russians, is the only evidence of Russian involvement in DNC hacking (Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, page 46) (Washington Post, July 13, 2018)
July 2016: FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith and others, later convicted for doctoring false documents (August 2020), lied on court surveillance wiretap warrants in order to link Trump to Russia.
July 22, 2016: Wikileaks releases DNC emails using their online search database and exhibits highlights. These emails, now public, would be very embarrassing to the Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton campaign if they were covered by the media.
July 26, 2016: CIA director John Brennan claims, according to his own handwritten notes, that Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ordered "tying him [Trump] to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee." According to Brennan, the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services." CIA director John Brennan discussed these plans with then President Barack Obama.
November 2016: Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, says: "The Feds get through [the password-protection on Seth Rich’s computer], and this is what they find. This is according to the FBI report... What the report says is that – some time in late spring or early summer – he [Rich] makes contact with WikiLeaks. That’s in his computer... They [the FBI] found what he [Rich] had done was he had submitted a series of documents – of emails, of juicy emails – from the DNC... By the way, all this shit about the DNC, where the hack, it wasn’t hacked."
December 15, 2016: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former intelligence officers, claimed that the evidence showed the DNC emails were leaked from an insider and not hacked by Russians.
January 5, 2017: Media claims 17 intelligence Agencies confirm Russian election interference. Later, Sept 6, 2019, correction, admitting it was just the CIA, FBI, and NSA, and other intelligence agencies do not concur.
February 2, 2017: Imran Awan, friend of Seth Rich, is cut off from DNC I.T. support after investigations over data breaches and theft. Yet Wasserman Schultz continued to pay Awan even though the other Democrats purged him from their payroll and Schultz promises to pay him additional money after he goes to Pakistan.
May 24, 2017: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police for taking Awan hard drives: "Under my understanding, the Capitol police are not able to confiscate a member’s equipment when the member is not under investigation," Wasserman Schultz said. "It is their equipment and it is supposed to be returned." FBI never had physical contact with hacked DNC equipment for their investigation, only Crowdstrike had access to do any direct investigation. "The FBI never took physical hold of the DNC’s computer system." (AP; September 26, 2019)
May 2017: Rod Wheeler, investigating Seth Rich death, claims: "I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, 'Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can't share any information with you.' Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department."
July 24, 2017: DNC tech support Imran Awan (who is Pakistani) was arrested at the airport charged with bank fraud by misrepresenting bank loan for a rental property; application for a home equity line of credit claimed the rental property was his wife’s primary residence; this crime led to a nationwide manhunt.
September 16, 2017: According to the Washington Post, Awan hacked in DNC, "Investigators found that the five IT employees had logged on at one server for the Democratic Caucus more than 5,700 times over a seven-month period, according to documents reviewed by The Post. Alvi, the only one of the five who was authorized to access that server, accounted for fewer than 300 of those logins, documents show."
July 3, 2018: Imran Awan signed a plea agreement, keeping him out of jail, declaring that he was NOT guilty of leaking the DNC emails (in order to not counter the Russia hack narrative), "The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems. Particularly, the Government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information." Imran Awan "will be fully subject to criminal prosecution" if he reveals any information to counter the official narrative of the data breach.
Evaluation: Whether "Guccifer 2.0" is fake persona created by CrowdStrike, or if "Guccifer 2.0" really is "the Russians," the timeline clearly shows that Guccifer 2.0 was not involved in the DNC data breach --- which happened before any existence of activity from "Guccifer 2.0" or any Guccifer 2.0 communication with Wikileaks ---- and therefore there is no evidence that Russians hacked the DNC emails. Julian Assange of Wikileaks had the leaked emails in May, while traces of "Guccifer 2.0" did not exist until June 15, and there was no transfer of email data from "Guccifer 2.0" until July 14. This was too late to be relevant for any Russian connection. Attempts to connect Guccifer 2.0 or DCLeaks.com to Russians cannot inform anything related to the DNC hacking, which pre-dates their activities and appear to be part of a false narrative.
FINAL VERDICT: |
RUSSIA ELECTION CONSPIRACY THEORY IS FALSE
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