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WikiLeaks Leaks 25 DNC Voicemails, Likely from Email Transcription Service

They all appear to be pretty mundane.
Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

WikiLeaks has published what it says are audio recordings of Democratic National Committee (DNC) voicemails. The file dump, neatly organized on a page, comes less than a week after the organization leaked approximately 20,000 DNC staff emails, and one day after Hillary Clinton was officially nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.

[Clarification: There is no evidence that the recordings are part of a new leak. It appears that WikiLeaks simply pulled emails with audio attachments from its first dump and reorganized them on a dedicated page.]

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One voicemail featured William Eacho, the former ambassador to Austria, trying to confirm an invitation to a dinner at the White House with President Obama; while multiple other voicemails are from callers on behalf of "the Ambassador"—it's not clear if it's Eacho—also looking to confirm a White House dinner invitation. Gloria Allred also makes an appearance, calling about an unspecified scheduled phone call which she apparently was two minutes early for.

Other calls are more random, such as several recordings that contain questions or complaints about the party platform. One message from a Hillary Clinton supporter excoriates the committee for its supposed endorsement of Bernie Sanders.

"I'm furious about what you are doing for Bernie Sanders, he's getting way too much influence," she said. "What I see is the DNC bending over backwards for Bernie. Bernie is the worst person in the world to even be running for the Democratic party…"

One another voicemail, a young child can be heard speaking into the phone.

the first voice mail is of a child :( Hadas GoldJuly 28, 2016

As Reuters pointed out, the audio files were allegedly obtained directly from the emails of DNC staff. It appears that some DNC officials forwarded their calls to services that offer the option to transcribe and email voicemails. It seems that WikiLeaks originally pulled the 25—there are 29 files, four of which are duplicates—voicemail transcriptions from the emails of DNC staff so they could be published in a separate file dump.

Motherboard has reached out to DNC representatives for confirmation, and we will update this story if we hear back.