Who leaked to WikiLeaks? Russia? More likely payback by Netanyahu

The conventional wisdom has been that Putin is behind it.  But no one gives a reason he would want to tip the election from Hillary to Trump.  Granted Russia has the capability to hack the emails, but so do dozens of other nations as well as malefactors in the US, both governmental and private.  What is so intriguing is the timing of the release – late Friday afternoon, just two days prior to the opening of the Democratic convention – a time when most of the network news biggies had left New York and Washington for their summer homes.  There was no one left who could scan the nearly 20,000 pages.  Despite the media’s inability to digest the leaks, they went viral on the internet, especially on conservative websites.  By Monday morning DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz had resigned and the DNC was in turmoil.  The leaks were skewed toward embarrassing the topmost levels of the DNC and demonstrating the bias of the DNC against Bernie Sanders -- this to build a divide between the Sanders and Hillary camps.  And it couldn’t have been more successful.

What would be the motive for Putin to drop this stink bomb on Hillary’s coronation?  Certainly Putin has not been treated harshly by this Democrat administration.  This administration gave up the missile defense site in Poland in exchange for nothing.  It cut American nuclear warheads beyond those negotiated with the Russians, just to be nice.  It failed to react when Russia grabbed Crimea.  It failed to provide defensive weaponry to Ukraine to counter Russian insurgents.  It failed to challenge Putin ally Assad when he defied the red line and continued to use chemical weapons.  It antagonized Egypt and Saudi for playing footsy with Iran, reducing what little influence the US has in the Middle East.  Putin is now the go-to person to get anything done in the Middle East.  He couldn’t have asked for a more pliant administration.  If anything Putin would love 8 more years of the same.  So scratch the idea of Putin having a motive.

Next, if not Putin, whodunit?  Most likely Israel.  To say relations between Obama and Netanyahu are chilly is an understatement.  Any picture you see of the two together shows it.  Neither can hide it.  They bristle.   What are the reasons?  There are many.  But the biggest insult is that Obama appeared to meddle in the Israeli elections a year ago.   Obama’s former campaign national field director, James Bird, went to work for an anti-Netanyahu political organization, V15 (Victory 2015) whose slogan was ABB (Anyone But Bibi).   This wasn’t the first time Democrat election operatives had worked to unseat Netanyahu.  James Carville, Clinton’s chief campaign strategist worked against Netanyahu in 1996 in support of Labor’s Shimon Peres (unsuccessful) and in 1999 in support of Labor’s Ehud Barak (successful).  In all three cases, Netanyahu felt they were there at the behest Obama and Bill Clinton.  Turnabout is fair play in politics.

FBI Director Comey is looking into the source of the leaks.  CrowdStrike an organization hired by the FBI and the DNC quickly pointed the finger at Russia, citing malware in the DNC servers consistent with Russian techniques.  Rush Limbaugh yesterday speculated that it might be a planted false flag.  Late in his show he interviewed a college senior majoring in computer science who admitted he has done some hacking.   He said you always cover your tracks and leave no traces.  Rush ran out of time to finish the interview but he said he would do another on today’s (July 27) show. 

We may never know the source for sure, but I will bet Bibi is having a good chuckle right now.