Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.
16. DNC: Hacked and Helping Hillary
Emails seem to be a persistent problems for the Democrats in 2016. After the hacking of various important party members, the party was shaken. Especially because it happened just before the Convention. Because of it, the reputation of the Democratic National Comittee suffered a blow. The leak also resulted in the chairperson of the DNC stepping down just before the convention.
The embarrassment for DNC was twofold: Not only were their correspondences exposed without their will, but the info released didn’t do them any favours. While the intra-party election process is supposed to allow for equal ground, the DNC had a clear preference among the Democratic candidates. Emails between Clinton aides and the Democratic National Committee revealed that the party was collaborating with Clinton and thus disadvantaging former opponent, Bernie Sanders.
Yet Senator Sanders was not surprised by the information. For him, it was simply a fact of his campaign. Unfair, certainly, but not what made this so shocking. Perhaps the true scandal in this is where exactly these hacks are coming from. Nearly a month ago, the U.S. made their accusation against Russia. Even stranger is that around the time this was happening, Republican candidate Donald Trump suggested that the hackers continue. I doubt there’s ever been a precedent for a U.S. Presidential candidate promoting foreign cyber-attacks.