Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, said this week his website will release “a lot more” leaked material on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party---days after it leaked stolen emails that suggested the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, colluded to work against Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Assange said the leaks will be timed during Clinton’s run up until the November presidential election, adding that the recent leaks are “having so much political impact in the United States.”
“What we have right now is the Hillary Clinton campaign using a speculative allegation about hacks that have occurred in the past to try and divert attention from our emails, another separate issue that WikiLeaks has published,” Assange told CNN, speaking via the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
He avoided denial or confirmation of allegations that Russian hackers broke into the DNC’s servers.
“Perhaps one day the source or sources will step forward and that might be an interesting moment. Some people may have egg on their faces,” Assange told the network. “But to exclude certain actors is to make it easier to find out who our sources are. So we never do it.”
Assange said Clinton’s aides are trying to focus on the “Russian trail” rather than addressing the content of the emails themselves.
“I think this raises a very serious question, which is that the natural instincts of Hillary Clinton and the people around her, that when confronted with a serious domestic political scandal, that she tries to blame the Russians, blame the Chinese, etc.,” Assange said. “If she does that when she’s in government, that’s a political, managerial style that can lead to conflict,” he added.
Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, made a foray into the hacking allegations on Wednesday, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
On Thursday, the Republican presidential candidate told Fox News he was being sarcastic. “You have 33,000 emails deleted, and the real problem is what was said on the emails from the Democratic National Convention,” he said.
