So it seems like Donald Trump Jr. has been having exchanges with WikiLeaks. Both sides seem to be doing what we'd expect, with WikiLeaks trying to obtain/spread information and Trump Jr. wanting to know more about Clinton, but there seems to be a sense of collaboration here. In the first message, WikiLeaks seems to be trying to help out Trump Jr. by giving him information about the PAC, and Trump Jr. followed up on his promise to "ask around," according to The Atlantic.
Additionally, within 15 minutes of WikiLeaks suggesting that Trump Jr. publicize their leaks, Donald Trump posted, “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!” Two days later, Trump Jr. posted the link on his Twitter account, encouraging people to read about Clinton's "corruption" and "hypocrisy."
Although these exchanges do seem pretty sketch, after reading these reports, I'm still not sure if we can say anything definitive about WikiLeaks or Trump Jr. Was WikiLeaks biased and do they have a hidden agenda? Maybe. But it still feels more like communication between two organizations, each trying to further its interests by collaborating with the other.
What do you guys think? Did you feel the same way after reading about this communication between Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks?
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3 comments:
Part of the reason why Trump Jr. may have "voluntarily" released these images is probably to save face as Mueller's investigation moves to the White House. It's not surprising that the Trump campaign worked with WikiLeaks before the election, with Clinton's leaked emails becoming a significant factor in the election and the resulting victory. It definitely raises the question of whether or not such correspondence between a presidential campaign and organizations such as WikiLeaks should even be legal, but there is no doubt that avid Trump supporters are continuing to justify and even praise such actions.
Yeah, I agree with what Chris said. It's kind of hard to tell though at this point if wikileaks is definitively pro-trump, at least from this one set of messages. They did seem to try and get documents from the Trump side of things and leak those, even if they are doing so only to help them before other media releases them, although they could also just be trying to trick Don Jr. into giving away his father's financial info to be scourged over. However, I am not entirely sure if such a correspondence should be illegal or not... it is shady business, without a doubt, but it is still the truth - even though the Clinton emails did turn out to be kind of, as Mr. Silton would say it, a "nothing burger" (at least from my recollection, I could be mistaken), and the real harm came more from the actual releasing of emails than from the content of the emails themselves, it still wasn't like Wikileaks was fabricating evidence or documents. I would think that it is also possible the Democrats have worked with wikileaks, although that of course is just a guess, as it would also work for wikileaks to work with both sides and be impartial. Ultimately, I think it lies with the people to understand what is big news and important and what doesn't really matter from what gets leaked. Some stories may seem scandalous just because they're "leaked", but be really nothing, and so even if the Trump campaign is in the wrong for working with Wikileaks (which it seems to have done), the ultimate responsibility lay with the people to correctly utilize and interpret the various leaks and information that comes from the site.
I just love the idea of someone at Wikileaks sending "Hiya" to Donald Trump Jr. It's just seems so wrong.
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