Quibbles with your word choice aside, I'm not denying that it's possible (it's worth noting that we've yet to see actual, hard evidence for it) or even probable

Quibbles with your word choice aside, I'm not denying that it's possible (it's worth noting that we've yet to see actual, hard evidence for it) or even probable that they did (though the thought experiment works much better if you think they wanted to embarrass a President Clinton, not the candidate...seeing as how everyone else outside the US thought she'd win too). I'm simply noting that this is normal behavior for these countries stretching back half a century and, personally, I don't think it's worth starting WWIII over John Podesta's shitty password habits.