Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Drops Democrats' Full Report on Donald Trump
The DNC claimed that Russian hackers breached their servers, but...
A hacker codenamed Guccifer 2.0 has released 200 pages of files from the Democratic National Committee. The files include a report on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as well as information about the party’s donors. Just Wednesday, the DNC accused the Russian government of orchestrating a hack on its servers, but Guccifer 2.0 claims to be an individual acting alone, raising questions about the DNC’s initial charge.
Named in honor of one of the most prolific political hackers who claimed to once have accessed Hillary Clinton’s private server when she was Secretary of State, Guccifer 2.0 released the trove of documents after DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz insisted that the Russian hack had not compromised any financial or otherwise secret information. The initial data dump does seem to contain a list of DNC donors and a document from Clinton’s time as Secretary of State labeled “secret,” though it may be currently declassified.
The hacker taunted:
“DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said no financial documents were compromised. Nonsense! Just look through the Democratic Party lists of donors!”
The supposed list of DNC donors include a $1 million contribution from actor Morgan Freeman, among others.
The hacker also targeted CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that announced the DNC hack on Wednesday. One of the most well-known anti-hacking companies in the world, CrowdStrike credited the DNC hack as “sophisticated” and pinned it on Russia. Needless to say, Guccifer 2.0 appreciated the compliment.
“Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by ‘sophisticated’ hacker groups,” the hacker announced. “I’m very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly. But in fact, it was easy, very easy.”
Guccifer returned to mock CrowdStrike 2.0 one last time, signing off the blog post with a shot at the supposedly prestigious group:
“I guess CrowdStrike customers should think twice about company’s competence. Fuck the Illuminati and their conspiracies!!!!!!!!! Fuck CrowdStrike!!!!!!!!!”
The highlight of the leak, the DNC’s report on Donald Trump, contained little in the way of new information about the Republican rival, but rather a clear portrait of the argument the Democrats are going to make about Trump up until Election Day.
“Trump Is Only Loyal to Himself,” one heading reads. “Trump Is a Liar,” another says.
“Trump has consistently used dishonesty and straight-up lies to back up his extremist rhetoric,” the section on Trump’s lies continues, citing his claim that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating on 9/11 as well as his time as a birther as examples of his willingness to say anything.
The Table of Contents for the DNC's Trump Report contains references to the personal, political and financial liabilities of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Guccifer 2.0 also promised that the initial 200 pages were only the tip of the iceberg, and that Wikileaks would soon release “the rest” of the trove. Wikileaks has now responded by posting on Twitter about the leak, though it has not indicated when or if it has DNC documents to release. It is unknown whether the Guccifer 2.0 leak is related to Julian Assange’s recent claim that Wikileaks has “enough evidence” to indict Hillary Clinton.
Edward Snowden helped draw attention to the leak as well, tweeting a link to the story with the message, “This just became a big deal.”
He also confirmed that Wikileaks would only send a tweet about Guccifer 2.0 if the hacker had in fact turned over documents to them.
The DNC has not yet commented on the release of its private documents or on the apparent contradiction of the claim that Russian was behind the breach. Of course, Guccifer 2.0 is suspicious and does not provide any evidence that he or she is a lone wolf. The hacker does not have a record on the WordPress site it used to leak the DNC reports, and as far as anyone can tell, has never hacked anything ever before. But still, the idea that Russia is using Guccifer 2.0 as a front to hide its hacking project would draw skepticism from even the wiliest of conspiracy theorists.
Certainly, Assange’s promise of more documents will now be sought with greater anticipation. If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that in 2016, anything can happen.
Read the full report: Guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc.
