John Podesta

The the subject line of the email from Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik read “Heads Up.” The email was to his old friend and Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta. Podesta was being forewarned as to of Congress's investigation of Hillary Clinton's now infamous State Department emails. The email, dated May 19 2015, read “There is a HJC oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify. Likely to get questions on State Department emails.

As the leaks from Hillary Clinton's circle mounted, there was a rush to blame the Russians. Putin likes Trump, therefore Russian spies must have carried out the hacks that lead to the DNC leaks, Clinton Email Leaks and the Podesta Files all in the span of a few short months. Those files, released on Wikileaks, follow a lower profile leak that happened withing the Clinton Foundation in 2015 to the mainstream press and that leak was from a suspected insider. It is clear from the Podesta files that Clinton's inner circle had a short list of suspects that were already being watched.

The emails of John Podesta, the Clinton family chief of staff, as released by Wikileaks are a treasure trove worthy of bathing in if an investigative reporter were suddenly transformed into Scrooge McDuck. Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof pointed out one gem on twitter with a simple “Isn't this illegal?” Gosztola's instincts were in fact correct. What he found is very likely to be illegal.

The numerous releases by Wikileaks over the past months have caused a stir in the national press. Although major press outlets tightly intertwined to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have speculated without a single hard fact that Russian intelligence may have been the source of the leaks, criminally poor security seems to be the culprit.