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A top official with Hillary Clinton's campaign accused the Russian government Sunday of orchestrating the release of damaging Democratic Party records to help the campaign of Republican Donald Trump — and some cybersecurity experts agree.
The extraordinary charge came as some national security officials have been growing increasingly concerned about possible efforts by Russia to meddle in the election, according to several individuals familiar with the situation.
Late last week, hours before the records were released by the website Wikileaks, the White House convened a high-level security meeting to discuss reports that Russia had hacked into systems at the Democratic National Committee. Officials from various intelligence and defense agencies, including the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, attended the White House meeting Thursday on the eve of the email release.
If the accusation is true, it would be the first time the Russians have actively tried to influence an election in this manner, analysts said.
Clinton's campaign chief, Robby Mook, told ABC News on Sunday that "experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke in to the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through these websites. … It's troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
The document dump follows a report last month by The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the DNC, gaining access to an entire database of opposition research, among other material.
On Sunday, Mook and others noted that Trump has taken positions that seem to align with those held by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He cited Trump's recent statement on NATO that he might not provide assistance to member states that hadn't contributed their financial share as a sign that the Republican nominee is taking positions favorable to Putin.
Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, flatly denied the insinuation, calling Mook's comments "pure obfuscation" on ABC's "This Week."
"What they don't want to talk about is what's in those emails," Manafort said.
Last month, the forensic firm CrowdStrike said two competing Russian intelligence hacker groups penetrated the DNC's computers.