>>More argumentation and evidence is needed to prove whether the Russian hacking was directed to damage HRC, but the "hacked Republican dirt" is not the only single thing to make this determination, nor is it a condition sine qua non.

Sheesh. Go back to the initial accusation in October after "Guccifer 2.0" claimed responsibility for leaking material subsequently used by Wikileaks. The accusation was that the leak sites and persona used by G2 are "consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts... we believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."

Putin's press secretary responded "This is some sort of nonsense... every day, Putin’s site gets attacked by tens of thousands of hackers. Many of these attacks can be traced to U.S. territory. It’s not as though we accuse the White House or Langley of doing it each time it happens."

Fair point.

The argument at the time was not to release evidence or even the accusation, for fear of politicizing and affecting the election. That risk is gone now.

The more recent accusation that the leaks were not just to interfere in the election but to harm HRC's chances, do rely on hacked Republican dirt that was not released. Why not? Because they wanted to damage HRC. This is what was released to NY Post.

Without withheld Republican dirt, all G2 did was show what was going on behind closed doors.

Finally, the most recent suggestion is that Podesta was hacked because he acted on a phishing email. We are not security experts, but surely if you respond to a phishing email you don't need a genius Russian on the other end to "hack" (download) your posts. Meanwhile Wikileaks allies are saying the leak was a Democrat inside job.