Report: Clinton Foundation Possibly Hacked

A potentially campaign-ending October Surprise could be in the making for Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked Clinton Foundation emails, according to a report out late Wednesday evening.

Reuters is reporting that according to sources familiar with the matter, the Clinton charitable foundation had to hire a cyber-security firm to examine its data systems after seeing signs that they were hacked. The culprits appear to be the Russians, cyber-security experts say.

One of the sources and two U.S. security officials said that like hackers who targeted the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democrats’ congressional fundraising committee, the hackers appear to have used “spear phishing” techniques to gain access to the foundation’s network.

These techniques include creating bogus emails or websites in an effort to gain access to Clinton Foundation staffers’ emails and then to the foundation itself.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the U.S. officials said the hackers used the same techniques Russian intelligence agencies or their proxies employed against the Democratic Party groups, which suggests that Russians also attacked the foundation.

A third source told Reuters that “there is no evidence that the hackers were able to follow any of the hacked emails into the State Department’s classified email systems.”

No emails or voice messages from the hack have yet emerged, but that could be because whoever is behind the breach is waiting for just the right moment to do a document dump.

Democrats and Clinton campaign officials are reportedly “worried” that the hackers might have obtained evidence that prove Republican allegations that the Clinton Foundation is basically a pay-to-play slush fund for the Clintons and their cronies. The Clintonistas are also said to be “concerned” that the hackers could damage Hillary’s presidential aspirations if they release the documents and emails on WikiLeaks or some other such outlet.

According to Reuters, “the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee convened a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to discuss best cyber security practices.” I would venture to guess that they also discussed best contingency plans should the revelations prove to be damaging enough to torpedo Clinton’s candidacy.