Tuesday, in the midst of the returns from the presidential election, WikiLeaks sent out an odd tweet that contained encrypted information it said pertained to “future publications.”
The tweet, posted at 3:21 p.m. EST Tuesday, prefaced any of the official election returns, but followed liberal media “exit polling” that suggested former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might win. Perhaps concerned what a president-elect Clinton might be able to accomplish to prevent further publication, it is likely the release was meant as an emergency “dead man’s switch.”
Such methods have been used in the past to ensure the safety of public whistleblowers.
Without the encryption key—which remains in the possession of WikiLeaks personnel—the files are currently worthless. But the tweet sent a very strong message to Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and others who have already been in the group’s crosshairs: This isn’t over yet.
In fact, when it appeared that President-elect Donald Trump was on a pathway to victory early Wednesday morning, WikiLeaks released a document detailing the Clinton campaign’s plan to implement a “Pied Piper” strategy. Such a strategy pushes what is considered the weakest candidate, in this case Trump—although U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Dr. Ben Carson were also considered—to set up a means to easily defeat the opposition.
As WikiLeaks noted, however, that plan “backfired spectacularly.”
The release of “Podesta Emails” documents also continued Wednesday afternoon. As of this writing, 58,660 emails, in 36 batches, have been released by WikiLeaks. The details of those, along with the second round of DNC leaks, prompted The New York Observer—a newspaper owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—to suggest a class-action lawsuit against the Democratic Party might be in order.
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