4 ms·

The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. And Wikileaks

34 points by glhaynes 9y ago

r3bl 9y ago
Wow. Just wow. This is unexpected even for the Wikileaks standard.
glhaynes 9y ago
"Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns … If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality."
eqmvii 9y ago
Just this week I was involved in a comment thread where people defended Wikileaks' impartiality. This is a huge bombshell.
glhaynes 9y ago
As author Julia Ioffe notes on Twitter, the story has now been updated to note that @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails 15 minutes after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232 https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232
Boothroid 9y ago
Because of course, whoever is leaking this information is only doing it for the noblest reasons.
kbenson 9y ago
Some of this can be read as Wikileaks fishing for information from the Trump campaign, and saying what they need to get it. The Pandering and trying to make Assange sound good is a bit off-putting, and strengthens my impression that Wikileaks really is a mouthpiece for Assange in all but name, but it definitely doesn't look good for Wikileaks in general. Edit: This seems to be suppressed on HN as of right now (not in the first four pages of submissions), likely due to their automated systems that tramp down things likely to turn into political flame-wars. Hopefully it somehow hits a threshold to get out of that or gets moderator approval/boost, as this seems like news worth discussing to me. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people that would be happy to see it skip the front page entirely because they don't like these kind of articles.
notahacker 9y ago
It's been abundantly obvious for a very long time that regardless of the noble motivations of some people who have been involved in the project, Assange is a partisan hack who's about as well-intentioned as weev and probably surprisingly similar in his politics. Though even I'm amazed his hubris actually went as far as asking to be appointed as a foreign ambassador, and can't help but love the implication that he or one of his closest confidants managed to talk Donald Trump Jr into tweeting out incriminating emails. Not to mention the irony of Wikileaks' being leaked against and its founder tweeting about not keeping any records of the conversations... We could probably still do with an impartial international clearing house for leaked memos that isn't run by somebody who rejects the Surkov leaks because it might deflect from him tweeting polls about the Presidential candidates' heath or the remarkable insight that the Economist has a Rothschild on the board.
alva 9y ago
No matter how you view Wikileaks, they are more than technically able and would have known Twitter DM's are essentially public to USG. Adds an interesting angle.
lbsnake7 9y ago
I don't know if this line of thinking will get any play on this forum as I have read people praising him constantly, but what does this mean for Snowden? He was working for the NSA, stole secrets from his government and gave it to reporters to distribute, and then sought and received asylum in Russia with the help of WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks is heavily connected to the Russian government, at what stage can we say that Snowden effectively defected to Russia?
- notahacker 9y ago
  tbh I'm not sure even if there was hard evidence of Assange as an intentional Russian asset it would greatly change the complexion of Snowden's situation, unless records were produced of him offering Snowden the support of the government of Russia before he released anything. If anything, it might make him more likely to have been duped into having little choice of destination to flee to other than Russia. The military's view Snowden defected as soon as he released classified info and added to the charge sheet by fleeing to Russia isn't really contingent on whose advice he took either. And the published bits correspondence isn't really evidence of Assange being particularly closely connected to the Russian government; if anything it's so crass, self-absorbed and risky it points towards the opposite.

34 points by glhaynes 9y ago

r3bl 9y ago

Wow. Just wow. This is unexpected even for the Wikileaks standard.

"Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns … If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality."

eqmvii 9y ago

Just this week I was involved in a comment thread where people defended Wikileaks' impartiality. This is a huge bombshell.

glhaynes 9y ago

As author Julia Ioffe notes on Twitter, the story has now been updated to note that @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails 15 minutes after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232 https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232

Boothroid 9y ago

Because of course, whoever is leaking this information is only doing it for the noblest reasons.

kbenson 9y ago

Some of this can be read as Wikileaks fishing for information from the Trump campaign, and saying what they need to get it. The Pandering and trying to make Assange sound good is a bit off-putting, and strengthens my impression that Wikileaks really is a mouthpiece for Assange in all but name, but it definitely doesn't look good for Wikileaks in general. Edit: This seems to be suppressed on HN as of right now (not in the first four pages of submissions), likely due to their automated systems that tramp down things likely to turn into political flame-wars. Hopefully it somehow hits a threshold to get out of that or gets moderator approval/boost, as this seems like news worth discussing to me. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people that would be happy to see it skip the front page entirely because they don't like these kind of articles.

notahacker 9y ago

It's been abundantly obvious for a very long time that regardless of the noble motivations of some people who have been involved in the project, Assange is a partisan hack who's about as well-intentioned as weev and probably surprisingly similar in his politics. Though even I'm amazed his hubris actually went as far as asking to be appointed as a foreign ambassador, and can't help but love the implication that he or one of his closest confidants managed to talk Donald Trump Jr into tweeting out incriminating emails. Not to mention the irony of Wikileaks' being leaked against and its founder tweeting about not keeping any records of the conversations... We could probably still do with an impartial international clearing house for leaked memos that isn't run by somebody who rejects the Surkov leaks because it might deflect from him tweeting polls about the Presidential candidates' heath or the remarkable insight that the Economist has a Rothschild on the board.

alva 9y ago

No matter how you view Wikileaks, they are more than technically able and would have known Twitter DM's are essentially public to USG. Adds an interesting angle.

lbsnake7 9y ago

I don't know if this line of thinking will get any play on this forum as I have read people praising him constantly, but what does this mean for Snowden? He was working for the NSA, stole secrets from his government and gave it to reporters to distribute, and then sought and received asylum in Russia with the help of WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks is heavily connected to the Russian government, at what stage can we say that Snowden effectively defected to Russia?

notahacker 9y ago
tbh I'm not sure even if there was hard evidence of Assange as an intentional Russian asset it would greatly change the complexion of Snowden's situation, unless records were produced of him offering Snowden the support of the government of Russia before he released anything. If anything, it might make him more likely to have been duped into having little choice of destination to flee to other than Russia. The military's view Snowden defected as soon as he released classified info and added to the charge sheet by fleeing to Russia isn't really contingent on whose advice he took either. And the published bits correspondence isn't really evidence of Assange being particularly closely connected to the Russian government; if anything it's so crass, self-absorbed and risky it points towards the opposite.