Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” while commenting on Wikileaks releasing 20,000 emails that were stolen from the Democratic National Committee’s servers, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook said the Russian government was involved with the leak to help the Republican nominee Donald Trump get elected.
Partial transcript as follows:
MOOK: Well, I think the DNC needs to look into this and take appropriate action and I’m sure that they will. What’s disturbing to us is that we — experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these e-mails and other experts are now saying that the Russians are releasing these e-mails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump. I don’t think it’s coincidental that these e-mails were released on the eve of our convention here. And that’s disturbing. And I think we need to be concerned about that. I think we need to be concerned that we also saw last week at the Republican convention that Trump and his allies made changes to the Republican platform to make it more pro Russian. And we saw him talking about how NATO shouldn’t — necessarily intervene to defend our Eastern European allies if they are attacked by Russia. If you put all this together it’s a disturb picture.
TAPPER: What evidence is there that the Russians were behind this in terms of the hacking or in terms of the timing by Wikileaks?
MOOK: Well, we need to let the experts speak on this. It’s been reported on in the press that the — that the hackers that got into the DNC are very likely to be working in coordination with Russia and, again, I think it’s — if the Russians had these e-mails I don’t think it’s coincidental that they are being released at this time to create maximum damage on Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.
TAPPER: It is a very, very strong charge that you’re leveling here. You’re basically suggesting that Russians hacked into the DNC and now are releasing these files through Wikileaks to help elect Donald Trump.
MOOK: Well, this isn’t my assertion. There are a number of experts that are asserting this. I think we need to get to the bottom of these facts. that are what experts are telling us. Experts have said it was the Russians who in fact went in and took these e-mails and then if they are the ones who took them we have to infer that they are the ones, then releasing them.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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