I think I will got with the opinion of the US intel community on this one, over Assange. I don't think he has quite the same level of investigative power.

Sample article, not definitive.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russian-intelligence-hacked-dnc-emails-says-top-u-s-official-n618936

For a moment, assume for the sake of argument that Assange is right. Next round of emails gets released, there's damning evidence of criminal actions or other behavior that are sufficient to arrest or at least force Hillary to drop out of the race. What would happen if that does come to pass?

Would the Democrat party be able to name Bernie as their candidate, since he got the second highest number of delegates? He has already endorsed Clinton and officially returned to being an Independent instead of a Democrat (or at least says that he would return to the Senate as an Independent). In light of that, would they pass the torch to Tim Kaine as Hillary's VP pick?

It's all pretty weird and unprecedented. I can only think of the Nixon resignation as setting any sort of example; but maybe there have been Governor candidates disqualified due to criminal activity in the middle of a race before?

I must say, it seems to me that it would almost be a blessing for the Democrat party if it *does* come true and they revert to Sanders for the nominee. I tend to think he'd easily beat Trump in the general election (although having endorsed Hillary could be damaging), and we'd all have the benefit of having someone with actually positive favorability ratings on the ballot...

Probably all wishful thinking on my part as a Sanders fan. But still interesting to contemplate.

Well just go on and leak then. Why this RT/Assange trash talk?

@MilkmanDan, I can't see them going with Kaine. That would be political suicide.

Not that it matters. The emails could say that Hillary shot JFK, faked the moon landings and is actually Saddam in disguise and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

And she'd STILL be a better choice than Trump...

The real question, if this is so damming for Hillary, is when to leak them?

If now she has time to recover.
If 30 days before election then ouch.

The ones he leaked we not trash talk. It showed collusion at the DNC to not only hinder Bernie in Hillary's favor but also how the media is also politically invested with Hillary.


Why would the DNC do this on their own? Hillary and DWS have to have conspired to win the nomination. Will the leaks will indicate this? Guess we will have to wait.

The Clintons have proven to be quite teflon against scandal, but if there is solid evidence of something actually criminal I think that would crash down.

The concrete leaks so far haven't been that damning. But I think there's a point that even she would see her support dry up.

There's nothing in the universe he could manifest, up to and including... Ah, @ChaosEngine beat me to this one.

Basically everything he said.

Trying to remain relevant? Actual attempt at destabilizing the political process?
That's the only thing I can think of; it's either pathetically personal, or there really is a huge movement toward getting Trump into office. (I can't imagine it just being anti-Hillary, because there's sure as fuck immeasurably more dirt on every other candidate).

I think its important to point out the source for all this. RT news is worse than Fox... and that is REALLY not easy.

There really isn't much i wouldn't believe about Clinton, but having said that this is a pretty long walk to credibility.

Even more bad news, they just found out that Clinton's campaign servers were hacked. Maybe Assange was right?

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/29/politics/democratic-congressional-campaign-committee-hacked/index.html

One possible silver lining, this may make "them" more concerned about the electronic voting machines being hacked, which has been a concern since they were first introduced. There's a real chance that a foreign country might actually control the results, with no way to ever be sure, since there's no paper trail.

Electronic voting makes the democratic process untrustworthy.

Any voting that can not be anonymous and supervised by all interested parties, any kind of "magic black box" with no paper record will be hacked and misused and should not be trusted.

Also Watergate was a scandal for the party doing the breaking-in. Nowadays it seems the other way round.

Also no-one in their right mind would hack Trumps mails. What worse could he write than what he says? What difference would it make if we knew?

RT is literally called Russia Today a wholly sponsored media channel of the Kremlin, it's like the Fox News of Putin.

Julian Assange is waging a personal war against the Obama/Clinton administration, some Australian hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy because he won't face rape allegations in Sweden shouldn't be the one to dictate how the American people should vote.

He is implying that Clinton blaming the email leak on Russians means that she will be terrible at foreign policy not mentioning that 3 separate cyber security firms found traces indicating the hack was carried out by Russians. It's so sensitive now. They release proof Russia is dabbling with US elections how will the American people react?

Selectively releasing damaging information against one candidate against another is not just some idealistic truth to power its manipulation of elections. I wouldn't mind if BOTH the DNC and RNC emails get released but this is a very one-sided attack. But think what that scenario even implies. Should all federal government briefings be open to the public because WikiLeaks says so?

Where are the WikiLeaks on Russia's war in Ukraine? Or the assassination of Boris Nemtsov?

Just do it then, Assange. What's with the build up? Why not release a trailer? Get with the Hollywood hype machine.

To show up the greatest country in the world? Revenge? To destabilise Clinton's campaign?

You can drop a bomb, but if it's not at the right time, or place, the damage can be ignored. Timing of delivery is everything.

Or, alternately, it's a bluff to cause panic in which case something might slip out.

Jeebus, have you guys ever played poker? \= )

This Russia criticism - I don't understand. Is a pickpocket any less guilty because a Russian spotted them stealing from you?

And in my experience, RT is more reliable than the average western sources. It has its own bias, but by Christ if you think Rupert Murdoch is any better than the Kremlin when it comes to self-serving two-facery.. well, I have a magic golden egg laying hen to sell you.

The pickpocket comparison doesn't make sense - it's more like listening to an acquaintance who says your girl's been cheating, when you know that he wants to get with her. He may be telling the truth, but you should probably try to find other confirmation before you do anything.

You'd also confirm the pickpocket was guilty, wouldn't you? Well I would - I don't just believe everything I see or hear. I didn't mention it explicitly because I expect everyone to question all of their sources all of the time, like I do. But I don't see how that would make it make less sense, rather that it is more or less accurate of a comparison...? anyway.

In light of that, I think my example not only makes sense but is more valid than yours because yours introduces feelings and bias towards the involved parties that only make metaphorical sense if you refer to jingoistic crap about blindly loyal American nationalism and fear/hatred of Russians somehow. Which is kind of the point I'm questioning in the first place; there is a huge difference between 'applying reasonable doubt to your sources' (your point) and using the Russian excuse to ignore the actual problem (my point).

Also has there ever been an American intelligence leak/failure that was NOT linked to the Russians? I hope we're not reverting to the kind of cold war style paranoia that 10 years ago we would have laughed at around here. Somewhere there's a flow chart in the White House that has 12 boxes on one side listing possible internal failures and fuck ups and they all point to one box on the other side saying "Blame Russia".

If you're genuinely worried about the source making the leak up and it all being just faked, you best take that up with Wikileaks. They have a very robust reputation, the kind that you don't earn easily. It doesn't make them right, but it means you have to make a strong point against them. I feel like it wouldn't be all that hard for anyone with the clearance to check and confirm if it was a Russian fabrication, and then a story confirming Wikileaks was talking bullshit, releasing Russian propaganda, would be huge news.

Assanges credibility is all based on him not being a political force, but a whistleblower.

Once he starts campaigning instead of releasing facts, his credibility is gone, he might as well be writing those "leaked" emails himself.

Impossible to judge until we see the emails. Do we want to read other peoples emails though? At least if this turns out to be a dud we dont have to ever worry about Assange again.

This comes from using "russia" and "Putins regime" interchangeably. Nothing wrong with your average Russian. RT is an arm of an empire run by Putin, so yes, just like Murdoch, basically, only with nukes.