WikiLeaks dumps 20,000 emails revealing personal details of Democrat donors

Wikileaks – the infamous whistleblowing platform controlled by Julian Assange – released nearly 20,000 emails sent out by senior officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – the governing body of the American Democratic Party. The emails, which contain internal discussions about the Clinton campaign and more, were sent out between January and May 2016.

The data dump forms "part one" of a "Hillary Leaks" series of emails, according to WikiLeaks.

The emails, which include more than 8,000 attachments, contain names, home addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, social security numbers and passport numbers of thousands of US citizens, the Register reported.

WikiLeaks said, "The leaks come from the accounts of seven key figures in the DNC: Communications Director Luis Miranda (10,770 emails), National Finance Director Jordon Kaplan (3,797 emails), Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer (3,095 emails), Finance Director of Data & Strategic Initiatives Daniel Parrish (1,472 emails), Finance Director Allen Zachary (1,611 emails), Senior Advisor Andrew Wright (938 emails) and Northern California Finance Director Robert (Erik) Stowe (751 emails)."

In addition to revealing the internal discussions of the DNC, which hint at the officials' preference for Clinton over Bernie Sanders as the official presidential nominee, the emails also contained personal information of people who made financial contributions (even as little as $5) to the democratic campaign.

The DNC email dump comes at a delicate time for Clinton, who just hours later made her pick for VP and is gearing up for the democratic national convention in Philadelphia. There is still some uncertainty surrounding the source of the leaks.

While some reports indicate that a hacker or hackers going by the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0, this has been contested by security firms who attributed the leaks to Russian state-sponsored hackers. However, this claim has been refuted by both Guccifer 2.0 and officials at the Kremlin.