WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says there’s an “obvious” reason the Obama administration has focused on Russia’s alleged role in Democratic hacks leading up to Donald Trump’s election.
“They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House,” Assange said during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity airing Tuesday night, according to a transcript of excerpts from the network.
“They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president,” Assange said during the interview, which was conducted at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been staying.
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“Our publications had wide uptake by the American people. They’re all true,” Assange continued. “But that’s not the allegation that’s being presented by the Obama White House.”
Assange reiterated the group’s denial that Russia was the source of the Democratic documents released over the summer.
“Our source is not a state party, so the answer for our interactions is no,” he said.
In December, Assange told Hannity that the documents the anti-secrecy group received looked “very much like they’re from the Russians” but said his source was not them.
When asked if he thought WikiLeaks influenced the 2016 election, Assange pointed to private comments from members of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in documents published by the group.
“Did [WikiLeaks] change the outcome of the election? Who knows, it’s impossible to tell,” Assange said.
“But if it did, the accusation is that the true statements of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, and the DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, their true statements is what changed the election.”