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On 13 October 2016, the web site RedStateWatcher reported that e-mail published by WikiLeaks revealed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had been assassinated by Hillary Clinton operatives: The item referenced a leaked e-mail sent on 9 February 2016, four days before Justice Scalia was found dead in his room at a Texas ranch. E-mail in that chain was presented in reverse chronological order (with the most recent reply first) — sender John Podesta initiated the chain at 4:36 PM, and recipient Steve Elmendorf responded at 8:56 PM: Based on Wikipedia's definition of the term, RedStateWatcher claimed that the wet works phrase used in the otherwise vague e-mail was incontrovertible proof it referenced a literal assassination: Claims that Scalia was assassinated were not novel, as within a day of his death conspiracy theories about the manner in which he died swept social media. And the newly-leaked document was contemporaneous to Scalia's sudden passing, heightening concern about the use of the term wet work (or wetwork). However, dictionaries present a broader picture of the term and its applied uses: In fact, the term had then-recently been used euphemistically, to describe Chelsea Clinton's campaign trail attacks on her mother's Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders: In media coverage, wet work[s] was being used to describe deliberately obtained unflattering coverage of an opponent. And on the same day that the e-mails supposedly describing an assassination plot were sent, Alex Seitz-Wald penned an article for MSNBC that described Bernie Sanders as a regular attendee of luxurious fundraisers, particularly in Martha's Vineyard. The piece also reported both Bill and Hillary Clinton as performing the same sort of wet work as Chelsea Clinton: Although MSNBC published the piece on 9 February 2016, the topic of Sanders' DSCC retreats was the subject of e-mails dated 6 and 7 February 2016. In that chain, campaign associates looked to have discovered a photograph of Sanders at such a retreat and brainstormed ways in which to get a member of the press to cover his attendance at a February 2016 DSCC fundraiser (the e-mail appeared to have an appended image of Sanders titled IMG_0692.JPG). Rearranged in chronological order, the chain demonstrated Hillary Clinton's staffers planning how best to attack her opponent with retreat image and information about the lavish fundraisers: Tina Flournoy stated Sanders attended a DSCC event in July 2015, and on the date of the wet work e-mail (to which Podesta was also party) Seitz-Wald wrote: On 13 February 2016, Clinton campaign operatives e-mailed about continuing to use the fundraisers as a smear: Rearranged into the context of Antonin Scalia's death, the use of the term wet work was presumed by many to mean literal assassination. But e-mails between staffers just prior to the 9 February 2016 document revealed planning for a coordinated effort to plant a negative story about Sanders in the press in the days prior to the 9 February 2016 e-mail and article. On the date Podesta discussed wet work with Elmendorf, MSNBC published the coverage sought by Clinton's staffers on 6 and 7 February 2016. As such, the most likely victim of the wet work was not Scalia, but Sanders.
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