Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has rejected suggestions and implications that he is partly responsible for the crushing election loss of Hillary Clinton due to his site's releases of hacked internal emails from the Democratic nominee's camp that showed her in a negative light. As far as Assange is concerned, everything that happened is just the " workings of democracy".
Assange defended that the documents they released were about what the Clinton insiders were saying about their campaign which the American people were very interested to read, and from there on made some assessment on the elements and characters, and then " made their decision". "That decision was based on Hillary's own words, her manager's own words. That's democracy", Assange defended.
The Wikileaks chief shared his thoughts in an interview with the Italian newspaper la Repubblica while in the Ecuadorean embassy in London where he has been staying for more than four years, seeking an asylum that would prevent him from being extradited to Sweden where he is facing criminal charges.
Assange also claimed that there's nothing really surprising about their release of hacked emails from Hillary's campaign as he has been churning out documents about Hillary for years already. It was Hillary, Assange insisted, who was capable of carrying out dangerous and harmful actions against him or his perceived " allies". Assange cited the case of Chelsea Manning, his alleged source for 35 years. Assange claimed that Hillary and her network imprisoned and tortured Manning, according to the United Nations, in order to implicate him. He also hold Hillary accountable for beingt the " chief war proponent" in Libya.
Assange also expressed satisfaction on how their WikiLeaks releases have been received by the American public saying he was " happy with how much the American public interacted with the material we published."
Assange described in the interview his feelings about the U.S. presidential election result as being " mixed", although he appeared relieved that Hillary had lost and that it can only be good for America's political system.
"Hillary Cinton's election would have been a consolidation of power in the existing ruling class of the United States", Assange opined. He offers a more ambivalent view of his feelings about Donald Trump's victory, although he admits there Trump is not a " DC insider" and there might be some "opportunities for change".
