Just two days ahead of the French presidential runoff, reports indicate that “a large trove of emails purporting to be from the campaign of Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday.”
Emmanuel Macron reconnaît l'authenticité d'une partie des documents publiés ce soir par WikiLeaks, parlant d'un ajout de "nombre de faux" pic.twitter.com/FEjnmtUP8O
— Antoine Bayet (@fcinq) May 5, 2017
Needless to say, this feels like déjà vu all over again.
Of course according to the betting odds, it may be too late for “whoever” is behind the leak to sway this election:
(BBG betting odds index for a Le Pen victory)
Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or whether the emails were genuine.
The campaign said fake documents, mixed with authentic ones, were released together, in an attempt to sow doubt and misninformation. Macron’s team said, however, that it is not concerned about the leaked documents as they show routine operations of a presidential campaign.
En Marche! said it will take all appropriate measures to get clarification about this leak, saying it “won’t tolerate the undermining of democracy’s vital interests.”
An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight French time on Friday.
Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close on Sunday at 8 p.m.
Macron confirms #MacronLeaks
Vague claims of fakes was also tried by Clinton. Which?
Leaks: https://t.co/wLemQiYHT2https://t.co/uzvqgQuk9s— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 5, 2017
From AP
His campaign said in a statement late Friday night that some campaign emails and financial documents were hacked a few weeks ago and are now being circulated on social media, but that they have been mixed with false documents.
It said whoever is behind the leaked documents is trying to “seed doubt and disinformation” and destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff, comparing it to emails leaked from Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential campaign.
#BREAKING Macron team blasts 'massive hacking attack' after document release #Presidentielle2017
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 5, 2017
BREAKING: Macron campaign says it has been the victim of a massive, coordinated hacking operation, just days before the election – Reuters
— BNO News (@BNONews) May 5, 2017
REUTERS: Macron campaign says it has been the victim of a massive, coordinated hacking operation. https://t.co/4PIZ5FAlsL
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 5, 2017
MORE: Macron campaign says leak authors wanted to undermine campaign before second-round vote, but documents have no reason to concern them https://t.co/N39RhTgNsl
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 5, 2017
https://twitter.com/samgadjones/status/860617367516262400
Macron condemns 'massive' hacking attack https://t.co/A4NUB3UeOT
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 5, 2017
A reminder that there has been no real price to pay for Kremlin interference in US election. So Putin up to same tricks elsewhere. https://t.co/9r6T1NLYJm
— Max Boot ???? (@MaxBoot) May 5, 2017
***********
Meanwhile, at the Kremlin…
Only a criminal could be exposed by revealing his emails. OK, non-criminal intimate pics of his wife changing his diaper could result in ballots being destroyed by vomit, but you can’t blame a hacker for voters’ lack of imagination
Et tu Le Pen?
There goes the last chance for credible democracies. Voters will dismiss both sides in elections from now own – because of their general in ability to believe anything about them. Oh, but that is Putin and Trump’s grand plan.
I suppose France could invoke Article 5, but that would probably just be the final nail in NATO’s coffin.