It’s all over: How hackers & whistleblowers killed the Clinton campaign

Now that Donald Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton to become the president-elect of the United States, speculation has begun about what went so wrong in the Clinton campaign.

READ MORE: It’s official: Trump to become 45th president of the United States

Clearly, one issue cannot be blamed entirely for Clinton’s political demise. However, the impact of hackers and whistleblowers on this campaign was unlike anything seen before in a US election and forced the Clinton camp to spend many trail hours on the defensive.

READ MORE: 45% say Clinton email scandal worse than Watergate – poll

WikiLeaks’ onslaught of almost 60,000 leaked emails from Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta engulfed the campaign every day for a month in the run up to election day, and exposed some embarrassing inner workings of the campaign.

READ MORE: ‘WikiLeaks must publish and be damned’: Assange address on US election day

One of the most damaging Clinton controversies came in the form of her infamous use of a private email server to send and receive classified documents during her time as secretary of state.

READ MORE: FBI director: No charges after new review of Hillary Clinton emails

Another damaging revelation came from the WikiLeaks’ release of emails from key members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Leaked emails showed inner party strategizing to support Clinton and hamper her party rival Bernie Sanders during the primary campaign.

The scandal of the leaked emails unfolded publicly online and shadowed Clinton throughout her White House run.

Senate hearings, messy FBI investigations, rumors of cover-up operations, server wipes and admissions of an “extremely careless” use of technology, all created an air of secrecy and lack of trustworthiness around the presidential hopeful.

READ MORE: 'Leakers should shut up': Podesta slams FBI probe into Hillary's emails

If anything, the shock result has all-but solidified the power of whistleblowers and ‘hacktivists’ such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, Anonymous and Guccifer, who have proved to be influential in exposing the flawed US establishment as a whole – which many believe Clinton represented.

Speaking to RT, Jon Gaunt, host of talk2meradio.com, described what happened on Tuesday as a ‘revolution.’
“It is a revolution of sorts, and I welcome it,” he said. “Because it’s about time, as Donald Trump says, that we drained the swamp. There are too many people in politics who’ve been in it for too long, who have been feathering their own nests, and I guess Hillary Clinton is the prime example of that. So no wonder the working class and the middle class of America revolted against these people.
“So he’s come in. Strong leader, strong ideas, new ideas, and I think most people have thought ‘Well, we may as well give him a go cos let’s face it, the rest haven’t done much for us in the last 40 years!’ And Hillary represented that rest, so that’s why I think he’s been elected.”