On Monday, Wikileaks released a new batch of over 3,000 emails allegedly obtained from the hacked account of US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. The publication brought up the number of internal exchanges dumped online by the whistleblower website to 15,200.
In 2015, Dennis Cheng, the national finance director for the Clinton campaign, emailed other aides of the candidate, urging a decision on "whether we are allowing those lobbying on behalf of foreign governments to raise $ for the campaign. Or case by case." The US law prohibits presidential candidates from accepting foreign donations, according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). However, according to local media, campaigners may accept contributions from US citizens representing foreign states or nationals.
"I'm ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks. Are you guys ok with that?" Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said in a leaked email.
"In judging whether to take the money, we would consider the relationship between that country and the United States, its relationship to the State Department during Hillary's time as Secretary, and its relationship, if any, to the Foundation. In judging the individual, we would look at their history of support for political candidates generally and Hillary's past campaigns specifically," Elias wrote to other Clinton aides.
According to Karuna Seshasai, whose role in the campaign is reportedly unclear, such foreign agents include Iraq, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Libya, among others.
