For what it's worth, here is my theory, based on the evidence so far:  The Russians were clearly hacking everything they could.  This shouldn't surprise anyone, as cyber warfare is practically mandatory for any government these days.  Israel, China, France, GB, Russia, US, etc... they are all trying to find out everything they can about opposing government's key leaders.  

 

There is pretty convincing evidence that major attacks were originating from Russia and the Ukraine.  The FBI even warned the DNC about a potential threat to their security, but they didn't take adequate measures to prevent the hacks.  Personally, I believe these attacks were standard information grabs orchestrated by the Russian government, but there is NOT evidence to support this.  However, some of the organizations known to have hacked the DNC have affiliated with Russian Intelligence in the past, so it is not a stretch of the imagination to assume there wasn't some type of collusion, especially in the instance of the DNC.

 

Shortly after code was discovered on the DNC servers, a lone-wolf hacker by the name of Guccifer 2.0 took credit for the hacks, followed soon after by WikiLeaks claiming it had stumbled onto leaked emails from the DNC and Podesta.  I am not convinced they were leaked, though it is at least probable, considering the fact the DNC was working with the Clinton campaign to undermine Sanders.  The Podesta emails were almost certainly hacked, though.  Regardless, the timing of the hacks, followed by the announcement of emails is certainly suspicious. 

 

I think the most plausible scenario is that Russian hackers, working for the government of Russia to gather intelligence, were busted by the FBI.  In order to cover their tracks, they created Guccifer 2.0 to make it seem like a stand alone hacker was the one hacking the DNC and other US agencies.  They gave the relatively benign information to WikiLeaks to keep up the ruse that it was a single attacker.  Only, instead of Assange releasing all this information immediately, he releases the information over time.  Either he was politically motivated to do so (it's well known he doesn't like Clinton), or he could milk it for more money by doing so.  Either way, I think this was an unintended action that resulted in closer scrutiny that would have occurred had Assange either released the emails right away or had Hillary won the election.  

 

Russia is a threat to the US and will continue it's course of hacking any information it can, even if they call themselves our ally.  However, there is no evidence this was orchestrated by the Russian government to undermine our election process.  There is only speculation.  

---