The political scene is heating up in the United States following the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on 35 Russian officials last December 29.
Members of both republican and Democrat parties have thrown accusations, but a supposed truth overshadows everything else: the Russian state interfered in the U.S. presidential elections using cyber-attacks directed at Democrats.
Government and media plots have gone as far as to suggest that Russia took action to favor the President-elect Donald Trump on November 8. A joint statement by the Intelligence Community of the U.S. seems to confirm as much.
WikiLeaks allegedly shares part of the blame on the election outcome for releasing private documents and emails during the campaign, so Sean Hannity of Fox News sat down with Julian Assange, founder of the organization, to set the record straight last Tuesday.
Assange: Russia has no ties to Wikileaks
Hannity is a seasoned host of both radio and television, so he did not beat around the bush much when he was face to face with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London earlier this week.
When asked if Russia had any tie whatsoever to the origin of the documents leaked throughout the election cycle, Julian Assange reassured the audience that the European country had had nothing to do with it.
“We can say, as we have said repeatedly over the last few months, that our source is not the Russian government, and that it is not a state party,” the WikiLeaks founder told Hannity.
The source of the leaks may have been an American Democrat
Sean Hannity kept digging on the matter of who exactly was WikiLeaks’ source for the DNC, Clinton, and Podesta emails, to confirm Russia was not involved in the issue.
The host brought up a Daily Mail article dated December 14 that claims a U.S. Democrat was the one who handed over the information to a WikiLeaks contributor near a university campus in Washington D.C.
The supposed source cited “disgust at the corruption” in the DNC and the Clinton Foundation after rigging the primary elections against Bernie Sanders.
When asked about the legitimacy of these claims, Assange confirmed knowing the collaborator (the former ambassador Craig Murray) but did not comment any further on the source itself.
A “14-year-old kid” could have hacked Podesta
On the subject of the Podesta emails, the WikiLeaks founder and editor said that it was “something a 14-year-old kid could have hacked.”
The Clinton Campaign Chair fell for a phishing scam on its email back in March 2016 after his security staff wrongly confirmed the email was trustworthy.
Assange commented on how laughable the situation was since Podesta’s password was the word “password,” and that anyone could have breached his email account if he or she wanted to.
WikiLeaks did not mean to influence the election in any way
“My motivation for the last ten years with Wikileaks has been to publish true information that is otherwise unsayable,” said Assange when prompted to answer if the organization had any ulterior motives.
He said the connection between WikiLeaks and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States is the result of a media spin which is, in turn, a byproduct of intelligence bodies falsely tying up the whole ordeal to Russia.
Assange disagreed with Hannity on the thesis of the media rallying up behind Hillary because they share her agenda, attributing their support for the Democratic candidate to personal interests instead. Not corruption, but collusion.
Obama is “playing games” with Russia hacking plot
The Australian journalist and computer security expert assured Hannity that Obama was just “playing games” by trying to suggest Russia had “hacked” the elections.
He further noted how careful the President was with his words when referring to the subject at hand, never tying it up directly or saying that the Russians did so to favor Donald Trump as the elected candidate because they have no evidence.
Assange deemed the Democratic Party’s response to the election shortsighted, as it focused on short-term results and not in analyzing what was truly wrong with the establishment.
“We believe that the best type of government comes from a government that is scrutinized by the people when they have true information about how government, major corporations, and other power actors in society actually behave,” the WikiLeaks chief said.
Source: YouTube
