Politico Writer Defends Reporting on Hacked Documents in 2016: ‘Voters Have a Right to that Information’

Politico’s Marc Caputo sat down with 60 Minutes, where he defended reporting on documents stolen from the DCCC by Russian hackers in 2016.

Speaking with correspondent Bill Whitaker, Caputo defended using stolen information to report on congressional races in Florida. Caputo noted he received the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee documents from a political blogger, who 60 Minutes reported was a Republican strategist that communicated with Russian hackers who used the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0.

“You played a role in disseminating this stolen information,” Whitaker said.

“I have a role to play as a reporter covering campaigns,” Caputo said. “And sometimes that information comes to us from a variety of sources. And in this case, it came to us from a source right at the edge of being unusable. But ultimately we decided, ‘well, this tells a legitimate story about how these campaigns view their own candidates.’ And voters have a right to that information.”

In an extended interview published by 60 Minutes Overtime, Caputo further defended his actions.

“Did it feel unfair?” Whitaker asked. “Because the information just seemed to be hurting one side.”

“Well, life is unfair and politics is unfair. My job is not to sit there and decide, ‘this is fair, and this is not.’ My job is to cover the news. And wherever the news leads, we follow. … It has to be true and it has to be newsworthy,” Caputo said. “And if it is, we’re going to tell the story with the information we have.”

“Would you do anything differently, say in the upcoming election?” Whitaker asked.

Caputo indicated he would not, saying “we would follow the same process in 2020 that we did in 2016 … we need evaluate it to judge whether it’s true and whether it’s newsworthy, and if it is we would use it.”

Watch above, via CBS.