In July 2016, Hillary Clinton seemed like she was on her way to the White House.

She was leading Donald Trump in the polls by a wide margin.

And the other year, her staff would have felt pretty confident.

But around the same time, they also found themselves dealing with something unprecedented.

The Russian government and hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National

Committee and gained access to the entire database of oppositions.

Make Sullivan was Hillary's top policy adviser.

He and others suspected the DNC hack was part of a larger information war, being waged

by Russia, to tear down Hillary Clinton and get Donald Trump elected.

And even as Trump edged Russia on, Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to

find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

A lot of people thought Jake and the Clinton campaign were crazy, including sometimes

themselves.

We had a sense that maybe we were conspiracy theorists.

You know, maybe this couldn't possibly be happening because we hadn't seen anything

quite like it before.

And because we would go talk to the senior producers of networks and the editors of major newspapers

and tell them, and they'd look at us like we were wearing tinfoil hats.

What they were seeing went way beyond the hacked emails.

Like Facebook groups, set up by fake accounts, spreading lies about Hillary's civil rights

record, urging African Americans not to vote.

Crackpot social media conspiracy theories about Hillary getting caught in some kind of criminal

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