RNC Chair: ‘The Russians Didn’t Write Those Emails’
Almost immediately after WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 emails retrieved by hackers from the Democratic National Committee’s server, the spin cycle began.
It was already well known that Russian hackers had gained access to the email server, but the DNC took their message over the top by suggesting it was done at the behest of the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin. It was done, they added, to boost Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus responded to the Democrat spin, however, by refocusing attention not on who stole the emails, but rather on who wrote them in the first place. In an interview with nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt, he gave a very pointed assessment.
“I don’t know who has the emails of the DNC,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know if we can definitively say who has them and who’s taken them. But the point is, the Russians didn’t write the emails. And neither did whoever else; the WikiLeaks people didn’t write the emails.
“The DNC wrote those emails. So they have to answer for what those emails say and why paid staff and donors to the DNC were adding an arm to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the primary season. I mean, it just is, it was ridiculous. And so this is the issue they have to face this week.
“Forty percent, maybe 45 percent, of all the delegates that are here in Philadelphia, are here for Bernie Sanders. And what they’re learning today and this week is that the committee that they’re sort of partly celebrating took their person down, and they did it in a very dishonest and fraudulent way.”
That isn’t all that was found in the email dump. Someone took the time to read all 19,252 emails, and compiled a list of the most disturbingly hypocritical, that includes:
- Making fun of an African-American woman’s name
- “I love you. No homo.”
- Disparaging remarks about FOX News Channel host Megyn Kelly (email not linked: contains vulgar language)
The email released by WikiLeaks also suggest the DNC may have engaged in illegal activity:
Email from Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver outlining how the Clinton campaign is fraudulently moving money around to avoid campaign finance laws.
Email from a DNC lawyer explaining that a fundraising email needs to be reworded to circumvent the Hatch Act (which prohibits White House staff from taking part in fundraisers).
Hewitt, in his interview with Priebus, asked about the rumors that Russia will release some of the emails it took from Hillary Clinton’s personal email server while she was secretary of state. The RNC chairman took a dim view of those reports.
“If it’s national security, you don’t want to see that happening,” he said. “You know, Hillary Clinton put our country at grave risk. And hopefully, we don’t get to the point where those are released. But her sloppiness could lead to something very bad.”
