The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, released a statement on Election Day, following months of leaks mainly targeting the Democratic Party—mainly Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta.
Assange said his anti-secrecy website has faced “enormous pressure” to stop publishing emails sourced from the Clinton campaign.
Assange added that his website has not received any information on Donald Trump’s campaign, no information on Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign.
“As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us,” Assange said.
Meanwhile, there has been a great deal of pressure from Clinton’s allies “including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President,” he wrote in an open letter, explaining why WikiLeaks published the emails.
“We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere,” he wrote. “When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails).”
“No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.”
Assange said Clinton’s campaign has used tactics similar to Sen. Joseph McCarthy decades ago.
“In a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush,” Assange claimed. “The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia.”
He wrote in the letter—reiterating previous rebuttals—that WikiLeaks has no ties to Russia.
Clinton’s campaign has tried to link Assange with Russian hackers, while officials have refused to corroborate the authenticity of most of the leaked emails.
On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published more emails taken from Podesta, the longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton.
Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden for allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied for years.
Assange is slated to be questioned in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London next week in the presence of Swedish officials.
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