After days of bad headlines due to leaked emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta showing coordination among major media journalists and the campaign, the Clinton camp is attempting to change the narrative. And media outlets are complying.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallow started the ball rolling late Monday.
If you are going to write about materials issued by @wikileaks, you should at least state they are product of illegal hack by a foreign govt
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 11, 2016
Media needs to stop treating Wikileaks like it is same as FOIA. Assange is colluding with Russian government to help Trump.
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 11, 2016
Obviously cannot wish away reporter curiosity in campaign’s inner workings but for God sakes, Roger Stone admitted meeting with Assange
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 11, 2016
How about probing possibility of Trump associates directly coordinating with Russia and Wikileaks? That is the thing that shd cause chills
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 11, 2016
Soon journalists were following Fallon’s lead.
If someone was going around breaking in to the DNC and Podesta’s office, I feel like we’d all be more alarmed.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 11, 2016
Seems like in any normal cycle we’d be talking more right now about the propriety of publishing people’s stolen e-mails.
— Matt Bai (@mattbai) October 11, 2016
Next came Podesta insinuating that the Trump campaign was involved in the hack.
“It wasn’t any coincidence that within minutes of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape coming out, they decided this was their countermove to try to take the public’s attention off the despicable things that Donald Trump said on that video,” Podesta told reporters. He cited “circumstantial evidence.”
Then the campaign promoted the allegation that longtime Trump aide Roger Stone knew about the leaked hack in advance.
The following were retweeted by Fallon:
Roger Stone in August https://t.co/7YZljvR51z
— Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) October 12, 2016
John Podesta tells reporters: “It is reasonable to assume that Roger Stone had advance knowledge” of the hacked email leaks. (per pool)
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 12, 2016
Podesta’s hacked emails appeared online on October 7th.
Trump Advisor Roger Stone tweeted this on August 21st. https://t.co/r3np3vMNzd
— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) October 12, 2016
Then Fallon made the case on his own:
.@ggreenwald Glenn, yes or no, do you dispute that Assange was in contact with Roger Stone prior to release of the hacked Podesta emails?
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 12, 2016
.@NoahCRothman It is pretty clear-cut. Stone tweeted about it in August.
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 12, 2016
.@dmartosko@NoahCRothman No, it suggests Stone — and perhaps Trump campaign proper – was in on theft of Podesta’s emails. Which is a crime
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 12, 2016
Then other outlets began to run the speculative story, without anything more than Podesta’s accusation.
Podesta: Trump ally had ‘advance warning’ of hacked emails https://t.co/XU44wb01zz | Getty pic.twitter.com/Pqnig3SRWd
— POLITICO (@politico) October 12, 2016
Podesta suggests hackers are motivated by Trump’s ‘ties with Russian interests in his business affairs.’ https://t.co/rITvM8EyId
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) October 12, 2016
Hillary Clinton campaign manager blames Russia for email hackhttps://t.co/dgCkgS2Fvh
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 12, 2016
The Wall Street Journal reports Podesta as saying, “Stone pointed his finger at me, and said that I could expect some treatment that would expose me and ultimately sent out a tweet that said it would be my time in the barrel. So I think it’’ a reasonable assumption to — or at least a reasonable conclusion — that Mr. Stone had advanced warning and the Trump campaign had advanced warning about what Assange was going to do.”
Yahoo News quoted Stone calling the allegations “laughably absurd.”