The Associated Press reported this afternoon that the FBI has opened an investigation of the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A statement from the FBI confirmed that it is "investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC," adding that "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously."
Wikileaks posted emails Friday that suggested the DNC was favoring Clinton over her rival Sen. Bernie Sanders during the primary season. Clinton's campaign pointed to a massive hacking of DNC computers in June that cybersecurity firms linked to the Russian government.
As Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall has already discussed at length, there is a growing nexus between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's Russia.
As you may know, Trump's de facto campaign manager Paul Manafort worked for former pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, among other dictators. Trump himself has floated the idea of abandoning NATO and called for extorting our European allies for protection money. Trump's henchmen also altered the official GOP convention platform to withdraw support for the current Ukrainian government.
All of that occurred before state-sponsored Russian hackers handed DNC documents over to the anti-Semitic, racist, rape-apologist Wikileaks who then dumped it on the public without redacting credit card or social security numbers on the eve of the Democratic convention. Yahoo News also reported today that a DNC staffer responsible for building opposition research on Paul Manafort was personally targeted.
Trump may or may not be working directly with the Kremlin, but there's no doubt that Russian operatives are intentionally meddling in our elections.
It's abundantly clear that the Russians would like to see Donald Trump win, and why wouldn't they? President Trump would serve Eastern Europe and the Baltic states to Putin on a platter. President Trump would isolate America from all of our European allies and plunge the continent into war.
This is way bigger than Obamacare or taxes on the rich, it's about continuity of western Democracy.