U.S. authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, CNN reports.
“Just a year ago, they might have seemed the oddest of couples. But now President-elect Donald Trump and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, have formed a united front against the conclusion of American intelligence agencies that Russian intelligence used hacked emails to interfere in the presidential election,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Assange, long reviled by many Republicans as an anarchist lawbreaker out to damage the United States, has won new respect from conservatives who appreciated his site’s release of Democratic emails widely perceived to have hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And Mr. Trump has been eager to undercut the conclusion of the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other agencies that those emails were provided to WikiLeaks courtesy of Russian government hackers.”
Washington Post: “Although some GOP figures still view the WikiLeaks founder with suspicion, conservative news sources now praise him for exposing Democratic emails.”
President-elect Donald Trump is using Julian Assange’s remarks to question Russian hacking allegations, but in 2010 he called WikiLeaks “disgraceful” and suggested there be a “death penalty” for their actions, CNN reports.
Said Trump then: “I think it’s disgraceful, I think there should be like death penalty or something.”
“In the final weeks of a dizzying presidential campaign, Donald Trump is suddenly embracing an unlikely ally: The document-spilling group WikiLeaks, which Republicans denounced when it published classified State Department cables and Pentagon secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the New York Times reports.
“The Trump campaign’s willingness to use WikiLeaks is an extraordinary turnabout after years of bipartisan criticism of the organization and its leader, Julian Assange, for past disclosures of American national security intelligence and other confidential information.”
“The accusation that Russian agents are now playing an almost-daily role in helping fuel Mr. Trump’s latest political attacks on Mrs. Clinton raises far greater concerns, though, about foreign interference in a presidential election.”
Julian Assange told Fox News that WikiLeaks will release information with some “unexpected angles” regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign ahead of the general election.
Said Assange: “I think it’s significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.”
He added: “I don’t want to give the game away, but it’s a variety of documents from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining.”