I think a lone hacker managed to look like he's a Russian. The DNC has every motivation to claim that they have been hacked by "the Russians" as it's significan

I think a lone hacker managed to look like he's a Russian. The DNC has every motivation to claim that they have been hacked by "the Russians" as it's significantly less embarrassing to be hacked by a state actor than by an individual. EDIT: Let's assume Russian state level actor, and that the purpose of the hack is to obtain evidence that will lead to an indictment of Hillary, improving Trumps chances at winning the presidency (a Trump presidency would presumably be very susceptible to strong-man optics and influence form the Kremlin). First strike against that, is timing: You want Hillary to formally secure the nomination first. An (imminent) indictment against the presumptive nominee would surely allow some kind of manoeuvring to hand the nomination to Sanders (or even someone else) in a way that can't be done after the convention is wrapped up. Sanders/Trump is probably in Trumps favour, but not as much as indicted-Hillary/Trump is. Second strike is the publicity. Being hacked, especially by a malevolent foreign power, has several positive PR spins, standing up against foreign interference in a democratic election etc. If you just wanted to hit Hillary, make it look like an anonymous whistleblower from inside the DNC leaking documents to an investigative reporter (Russia certainly has the capacity to make such a plant). Best not to have Russian fingerprints at all on this.