WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Russia is not the source for the hacked emails from the accounts of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta.
In an exclusive interview with Fox, Assange told Hannity, “We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”
According to Assange, the sanctions put into place by President Barack Obama are being used to “delegitimize” the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. “Our publications had wide uptake by the American people, they're all true. But that's not the allegation that’s being presented by the Obama White House. So, why such a dramatic response? Well, the reason is obvious. They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House. They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president … .”
Assange went on to say that WikiLeaks did not get the information from Russia, and that while several government intelligence agencies have pointed to Russia as the sponsor of the hacking, there was no mention by any of those agencies of WikiLeaks’ posting of the emails.
“Our source is not a state party, so the answer for our interactions is no. But if we look at our most recent statement from the US government, which is on the 29th of December, OK, we had five different branches of government, Treasury, DHS, FBI, White House presenting their accusations to underpin Obama’s throwing out 29 Russian diplomats. What was missing from all of those statements? The word WikiLeaks. It’s very strange.”
WikiLeaks posted emails between members of the Democratic National Committee that seemed to show a preference for Clinton to be the party’s nominee for president over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The revelation of those emails led to the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former DNC chair, just as the convention got underway.
WikiLeaks published more than 20,000 pages of emails, allegedly from Podesta, in October and November 2016. Podesta’s emails proved embarrassing, as they exposed some of the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, and showed the campaign’s concern over possible conflicts with the Clinton Foundation
The full interview with Assange is set for 10 p.m. ET Tuesday on Fox News' "Hannity" show. It will be the first time Assange has had a face-to-face interview on a cable news network. He spoke with Hannity via phone about the hacked email last week.
Assange is living under political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He sought refuge in the embassy following an allegation of rape stemming from a visit to Sweden in 2010.
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