Julian Assange accused Hillary Clinton of “constant lying” and displaying a “cold creepiness” after the former US presidential candidate accused Wikileaks of being a front for Russian intelligence during interviews with British and Australian media last week, Russia Today reported.
Clinton, who has sat for interviews with media outlets in several different countries over the past week as the global leg of her book tour for “What Happened” began, described the organization that Assange founded as part of a “concerted operation” between Russia, Wikileaks and “people in the United States” – likely an oblique reference to the Trump campaign.
“It is not just her constant lying,” Assange tweeted on Monday. “It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement.”
“Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.”
WikiLeaks has a pristine record for accuracy. HRC is not a credible person. The primary cause of her downfall was her own Machiavellian scheme to elevate Mr. Trump ("Pied Piper").
Our last Russian expose was three weeks ago. https://t.co/MGa1z99vVU https://t.co/He4vgLIKBW
— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) October 15, 2017
Hillary Clinton claimed in an interview with one Australian news program that Assange colluded with the Russian government to obtain and publish emails stolen from the DNC in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election.
“Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator,” she said.
“WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence.”
“I think that their intention, coming from the very top with Putin, was to hurt me and to help [then-presidential hopeful Donald] Trump,” she said.
“Our intelligence community and other observers of Russia and Putin have said he held a grudge against me because as secretary of state, I stood up against some of his actions, his authoritarianism,” Clinton said.
“If he’s such a martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia? You don’t see damaging, negative information coming out about the Kremlin on WikiLeaks,” she added.
According to Clinton, Assange was motivated by a personal dislike of her stemming from her role as secretary of state, when the Obama administration cracked down on Wikileaks after it published sensitive government cables. Of course, Clinton has made similar accusations about Putin, whom she claims developed a hatred for her after she encouraged anti-Putin protests in 2009.
“I had a lot of history with him because I was secretary of state when WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our State Department and our Defense Department,” she said.
For what it’s worth, Assange has repeatedly denied having any connection with Russia, and has even offered to turn over conclusive evidence that Russia wasn’t Wikileaks’ source for the hacked DNC emails – in exchange for a presidential pardon. However, nobody in the administration has considered his offer, according to a member of Congress who’s tried to help broker the deal.
Assange has been in hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2011. Even though Sweden dropped sex crime charges against Assange earlier this year, he has remained in the embassy for fear of being arrested by the US for publishing classified material through Wikileaks.