One day after Hillary Clinton blamed Wikileaks (and James Comey) for her election loss, an angry Julian Assange responded to the former Secretary of State, telling her if she wants to blame someone for losing the 2016 presidential election, she should blame herself. In a tweet on Wednesday morning, Assange said "you can't blame WikiLeaks when what we leaked was your words and positions. Blame yourself."
You can't blame WikiLeaks when what we leaked was your words and positions. Blame yourself. https://t.co/Alr8xx626B
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 3, 2017
Clinton claimed to take “absolute personal responsibility” for her loss, however with a few footnotes adding that she “was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” at a Women for Women International event. She also acknowledged that it was her name on the ballot. “I was the candidate,” she said. “I was the person who was on the ballot and I am very aware of, you know, the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had.” Clinton also blamed FBI Director James Comey, who announced 11 days before the election that his bureau was looking at new emails linked to Clinton.
On Wednesday, Comey testified before Congress and dismissed WikiLeaks as an illegitimate news source, calling the website “intelligence porn.”
“It crosses a line when it moves from being about trying to educate a public, and instead just becomes about intelligence porn, frankly, just pushing out information,” Comey said at a Senate hearing. "There’s nothing that even smells journalist about some of this content."
Assange hit back at Hillary's accusations, describing it as a lie and called Hillary the “butcher of Libya.”
Two lies in one screenshot: the butcher of Libya--Hillary Clinton--blames "Russian WikiLeaks" while sitting in front of #SheBringsPeace sign pic.twitter.com/mRyZTo85T7
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 3, 2017
Also on Wednesday morning, a lawyer for Assange said a request had been filed with a Swedish court to rescind a detention order against him, claiming it should be granted on the grounds that it was now evident the US wants to arrest the WikiLeaks editor.
Assange has filed a new case today in Sweden to have authorities cease detaining him without charge
Background https://t.co/Mb6gXlz7QS
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 3, 2017
A previous request was rejected by Sweden’s Supreme Court on the grounds that Assange was unlikely to be handed over to the US by Sweden, claims Samuelson. "Given that the US is obviously hunting him now, he has to make use of his political asylum and it is Sweden's duty to make sure that Sweden is no longer a reason for that fact he has to stay in the embassy," Assange lawyer Per Samuelson said.
Last month sources in the Department of Justice told the CNN and the Washington Post that charges were being prepared against Assange. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters that his arrest was a “priority,” describing documents revealed by WikiLeaks as “quite serious.” “We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo, whose organization has become the subject of WikiLeaks #Vault7 series of leaks, said he would be pursuing Assange. The #Vault7 leak, which WikiLeaks claims originated from the CIA center in Langley, Virginia, has revealed sordid details of alleged CIA hacking techniques, including the ability to spy via Smart TVs and hide traces of their hacks.