Let’s say you have a neighbor. You don’t like your neighbor. Your neighbor makes you angry. His dog craps on your sidewalk. You want revenge. So you hack his e-mails.
But you don’t stop there. In between the oodles of boring, day to day stuff you insert some juicy gossip about an affair and secret credit card debt. Then you pay a local kid to tell everyone about it.
Soon the neighborhood is awash with drama. Your forged e-mails about his affair and secret financial woes are lies, but the neighborhood believes it. You laugh as his wife leaves him, and takes the dog you hated to boot. You’ve had your revenge.
That is how Wikileaks and Russian electoral interference works at the international level.
They hack whatever they want, add in some material to make it look even worse, and give it to Wikileaks. Wikileaks then releases the information to the public at large, and voila! You have a bad news cycle on your hands.
That part is bold for a reason – Wikileaks adds fake material. They add it for additional impact.
Keep that in mind, because that is critical to understanding not just how Wikileaks works, but how they help accomplish their goals.
There are a few key things to note when considering Wikileaks:
- Who does it benefit?
- Who are the likely sources?
- What is the likely intended impact of the leak?
- Who would benefit from that?
- Is all of the material real?
Who does it benefit?
The vast majority of stories coming out of Wikileaks target the west. There is a reason that these stories target the west and not Russia or Russian interests, and that is because Wikileaks is a front for the Russian intelligence services. Russia is using, quite effectively, one of the greatest assets of the west – the free flow of information – against it in a shadow campaign.
When asking yourself ‘who benefits’, look at the immediate impact. Do the leaks disproportionately affect one candidate in an election? Or what about impacting specific ideals, such as western unity preached by a candidate? Is the individual who benefits from the leak publicly advocating for something that would benefit Russia? Softer stance? Rollback on sanctions?
Who are the likely sources?
Sometimes Wikileaks does receive its material from actual leaks, such as Chelsea Manning. But when the sources are unclear, and primarily impact elections, and candidates that would benefit Russia, we should use our common sense. The Russians have the resources, the capability, and the desire to impact elections and undermine the west.
What is the likely intended impact of the leak?
In the event of electoral leaks, such as against Macron in the final stages of the recent French election, it is evident that the goal was to benefit Le Pen. Putin wants to drive a wedge between the NATO nations, and one of the easiest ways of achieving this is by sowing discord within the European Union.
Candidates such as Le Pen, objectively, benefit someone like Vladimir Putin. Divide and conquer. ‘France First’ can quickly become ‘France Alone’.
Who would benefit from that?
Ask yourself with any Wikileaks information dump, who benefits? Who really wins at the end of the day?
It wasn’t that long ago that doctors recommended Lucky Strikes cigarettes! So ask yourself, who benefits?
Who would benefit from undermining European Union unity? Who would benefit from NATO being ripped apart? Who would benefit from decreased western trade? Who would benefit from distrust of the mainstream media?
Don’t jump to conclusions. Consider all of the factors. Is there fake news? Absolutely. But you need to consider who’s calling it fake…and why.
The Rushin Perspective 
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