China.

> Who is sponsoring 0-day exploit attacks

Anyone who could profit is our starting set. And the budget for the federal government funds massive amounts of private entities that have a vested interest in finding out ahead of time what their and their competitors funding will be.

Notably, hedging their bets on an exchange.

And, maybe obviously, some of these private entities are the very entities that are consulted for the federal government's email and computer security policy.

Political parties in this country would never stoop to criminal activity to gain strategic information. Why, if such a thing were to happen, and to involve high-ranking government officials, I bet it would be a major national scandal and maybe even lead to some unprecedented resignations!

Sounds like something types like HBGary could've been hired to do.