Three days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks releases the first batch of DNC emails, nearly 20,000, obtained by Russian hackers.

The emails from the Democratic National Committee include discussions of Clinton’s chief rival for the presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.); details of perks provided to party donors attending the convention; and email exchanges between party officials, journalists and others.

The leak leads to protests outside of the convention and the resignation of DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

In a 2018 interview with the Mueller team, deputy campaign chair Rick Gates tells interviewers that the emails “offered a mode of deflection for the campaign after a sink in polling numbers following Trump’s comments about Ted Cruz’s father at the end of the Republican National Convention.”

Sources

https://themoscowproject.org/collusion/wikileaks-begins-publishing-dnc-emails/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/22/on-eve-of-democratic-convention-wikileaks-releases-thousands-of-documents-about-clinton-the-campaign-and-internal-deliberations/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/mueller-report-secret-memos-1

Photo: Duncan C.