Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, has accused media outlets in the United States of “erecting a demon,” accusing them of supporting Hillary Clinton.
He said that Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, is also “whipping up a neo-McCarthyist hysteria about Russia,” according to an interview he gave to the New York Times on Wednesday, which was aired through Facebook Live. He asked, “What kind of press environment is this going to lead to post-election?”
Assange added: “The American liberal press, in falling over themselves to defend Hillary Clinton, are erecting a demon that is going to put nooses around everyone’s necks as soon as she wins the election, which is almost certainly what she’s going to do.”
During the 2016 election cycle, WikiLeaks has played a signficant role.
Right before the Democratic National Convention last month, the anti-secrecy organization released internal emails showing staffers criticizing Clinton’s former opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a U.S. representative from Florida, resigned from her post in the aftermath. Other implicated officials have also followed suit.
When asked in the interview with the Times on Wednesday about his own political biases, Assange said WikiLeaks is impartial.
He added that WikiLeaks would publish more information about the election in the coming months. “We have a range of information related to the U.S. election and a number of different institutions,” he said, without elaborating.
There has been some criticism that WikiLeaks hasn’t leaked any information about Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president.
On Aug. 26, speaking with Fox News, Assange said that WikiLeaks has “some information about the Republican campaign.”
“I mean, from a point of view of an investigative journalist organization like WikiLeaks, the problem with the Trump campaign is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second of the day,” he added.
