by:
Joe Saunders
It's another huge headache for Hillary.
Hillary Clinton’s hacking troubles keep getting worse…and we’re not talking about her well-known coughing fits.
A Romanian computer wizard has already claimed that
foreign intelligence services breached Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state, and her
Democratic Party’s internal computer files were open for a year-long cyber-invasion by another hacker with suspected Russian connections.
Now, the Clinton family’s charitable foundation itself has been
compromised, according to news reports, and access to sensitive,
internal information about the Clintons’ personal piggy bank could be a
bonanza for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation — a global
money-laundering machine fueled by huge donations from foreign
governments and businesses while masquerading as a charity — was another
target of a Russian state-sponsored intelligence operation,
Bloomberg News reported this week, citing unidentified sources.
Officials from the Clinton foundation told Bloomberg they hadn’t been
notified of such an operation, but if the report is true, it adds
another headache to Hillary’s already-considerable problems — political
as well as legal — when it comes to digital security.
Her use of a private email server during her four years as secretary
of state is already under investigation by the FBI. A computer hacker
operating under the online alias “Guccifer 2.0” has stolen and released
the Democratic Party’s opposition research on presumptive Republican
nominee Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Guccifer 2.0
released another major computer dump,
this one claiming to include Clinton Foundation donor information as
well as internal Clinton campaign documents and Democrat talking points
on issues such as immigration, guns and the economy.
As Bloomberg reported, the potential for a major scandal is growing:
The thefts set the stage for what could be a Washington
remake of the public shaming that shook Sony in 2014, when thousands of
inflammatory internal e-mails filled with gossip about world leaders and
Hollywood stars were made public. Donor information and opposition
research on Trump purportedly stolen from the Democratic Party has
surfaced online, and the culprit has threatened to publish thousands
more documents …
So far the released documents have revealed little that is new or
explosive, but that could change. Guccifer 2.0 has threatened to
eventually release thousands of internal memos and other documents.
Bloomberg notes that the computer attacks against the DNC, the
Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation are all believed to have
been orchestrated by the Russian government, possibly to affect the
fall’s presidential election, or to have bargaining chips in their
pocket should Clinton take the White House.
But the foundation break-in could be the worst for Hillary — and the
most productive as far as helping Trump. As Bloomberg notes:
Sensitive documents from the Clinton Foundation could
have the most damaging potential. The Trump camp has said it plans to
make the foundation’s activities a subject of attacks against Clinton;
the sort of confidential data contained in e-mails, databases and other
digital archives could aid that effort.
One top Democrat told Bloomberg that if the party could prove Russian
intelligence services were behind the thefts, American voter sympathy
for Clinton and the Democrats might outweigh any political damage the
information itself might cause.
Maybe. Patriotic Americans don’t like Russian spies as a rule — at least Republicans don’t (Ted Kennedy Democrats
might feel differently).
But there are two problems with that wishful thinking.
First of all, Guccifer 2.0 is claiming to be a freelancer, so it
would be up to Clinton and the Dems to prove that it was a Russian
operation if they wanted to mine that potential voter sympathy. Given
the nature of international espionage, that doesn’t seem very likely.
But more importantly, it depends on the information that actually comes out.
And anyone with even a passing familiarity with Bill and Hillary
Clinton, and their career of shady dealings — from fantastically
profitable cattle futures deals in the 1970s to quarter-million payments
to make a speech to Goldman Sachs in the 21st century — would not be
surprised if what comes out is very damaging indeed.
