Edit: This also works by keeping the focus on shallow things that can't be legally damaging. The media is in a cycle of reacting to gaffe after gaffe rather than digging into boring details that might lead somewhere.
My favorite one is when USIC released their statement saying they were confident Russia had compromised U.S political organizations to try and influence the election[1] and the "grab em by the pussy" tape was released that same day[2]
I'm not so sure he leaked that one. It seemed actually damaging. The DNC/Clinton hacks stuff is win for trump no matter how it ends up because what the leaks exposed is far more damaging than who leaked them.
Those leaks showed that the DNC and Clinton were colluding with the media to give Clinton an unfair advantage in the election. Broaching this subject can't escape that.
I think what happened next was accidental, Trump didn't expect to win. Right before the election He goes out of his way to make claims about how the election was rigged beforehand. This sparked rebuttals from the left including president Obama. Now that he's won, the people recounting and investigating the election look like hypocrites.
If Trump lost all of MI,WI,PA by a fewer than 80K votes, I doubt any Democrat would consider a recount particularly outlandish - especially if he won the popular vote by close to 3M votes.
As for the leak, we may never know who released it. But I wouldn't put it past them. Some people spend their entire lives studying psyops and it may have been a gamble that paid off.
