There's no "shade" here. It's straight up criminal. He got phished, deliberately, via a targetted human engineering operation. Again I just don't understand the desire to hide the underlying crime here.
It's possible to be very uneasy with the direct prosecution of Assange for this stuff, to view Manning as having been unfairly targetted, but to also recognize that there's a really serious underlying crime here that we need to address.
But no, everyone wants to pick sides here and stand with... Putin. Seriously?
Again, this binary nonsense is just crazy to me. It's possible to view the current geopolitical environment as safer than the 80's and see Putin as a dangerous despot and his actions in the 2016 election as crimes worthy of prosecution. Right?
Personally, I am much happier with intelligence agencies collecting information remotely than supplying weapons and overthrowing governments etc. In relative terms releasing accurate information is just not a major issue.
So, my concern is people take issue with this not because of what happened but because of the country that did it. And if that’s what’s going on, it’s the continuation of some very dark times. I have genuine concerns about what’s happening to the in Russia, but I think we need to judge their actions in absolute terms rather than let bias spiral.
It is still a story even if the source is shady. Even more impressive if the Russians are known to be involved.
Releasing the emails via Wikileaks isn't evidence of anything. Someone as well resourced as the Russian Intelligence service could have released them on The Pirate Bay and had a similar effect.
On my original point, Russia does not have a scary scheme to reveal the truth to unwitting Americans via Wikileaks. The idea is absurd.