Julian Assange, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin: A Troika for Our Insane Era

[DonViejo]

By Michael Weiss

In a bizarre mind-meld that could only happen today, the WikiLeaks founder is refusing to say whether he got the hacked DNC emails from Russia, and Trump is defending Putin.

It would almost be heart-warming that one media-obsessed megalomaniac has finally found his equal were it not for the fact that one is now within 6 percentage points of the American presidency and the other is Julian Assange.

The WikiLeaks founder and “editor in chief” took to CNN and NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend to explain his reason for releasing the Democratic National Committee’s hacked emails and to answer questions about whether they were obtained through the Russian intelligence services. In an answer to the first question, Assange told Anderson Cooper on Friday evening that he felt an obligation to WikiLeaks’ “readers” and that the decision to publish the emails just hours before Hillary Clinton accepted her party’s nomination was indeed opportunistic. “If we published after, you can just imagine how outraged the Democratic voting population would have been,” Assange said. “It had to have been before.
”
Very well, then. On the question of how his organization came into possession of this privileged correspondence, Assange told Cooper that he “can’t comment on anything that might reflect on sourcing to rule things in or rule things out.” So he won’t say if Vladimir Putin’s domestic and military intelligence agencies hacked the DNC, as a growing list of U.S. officials, independent cybersecurity analysts, and now Clinton herself believe, and—as is farther from being proven—handed everything they found to a digital collective ostensibly committed to total “transparency,” for the purpose of influencing a foreign election.

Assange has made his contempt for Clinton explicit. In a recent interview with British ITV’s Robert Peston, he said he believed the former secretary of state was trying to have him indicted for publishing U.S. diplomatic cables and military documents five years ago. He also chided Clinton for her support of the Libya intervention and her record as a “liberal war hawk.” On the WikiLeaks website, he described her as the candidate for “endless, stupid war,” writing that Clinton “shouldn’t be let near a gun shop, let alone an army. And she certainly should not become president of the United States.”

-snip-

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/01/julian-assange-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin-a-troika-for-our-insane-era.html

[anoNY42]

1. I have no view on Assange personally

but I don't understand why we are so upset that Wikileaks released the emails they had gotten, whatever their source. Isn't that exactly what Wikileaks is supposed to do?

I do not blame Wikileaks or Assange for damaging Clinton and the Dems. I blame the DNC, since it was their actions and emails that caused the damage.

[geek tragedy]

4. they timed the release to maximize the electoral damage to Clinton

they're actively trying to swing the election to Trump.

They've made that crystal clear, explicitly in their tweets.

They're rooting for Trump.

Because they are terrible people.

[anoNY42]

5. Do we know this for a fact?

Perhaps Russia timed their leak to Wikileaks in order to maximize damage. In that case, Wikileaks might just have released them when received from Russia (or whomever).

Edit: nevermind, I see the NYT reported that he did hold them until the convention.

[geek tragedy]

6. Yes, we know it for a fact.

Wikileaks sat on the files until the weekend before the convention.

WASHINGTON — Six weeks before the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks published an archive of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of the Democratic convention, the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, foreshadowed the release — and made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency.


Mr. Assange’s remarks in a June 12 interview underscored that for all the drama of the discord that the disclosures have sown among supporters of Bernie Sanders — and of the unproven speculation that the Russian government provided the hacked data to WikiLeaks in order to help Donald J. Trump — the disclosures are also the latest chapter in the long-running tale of Mr. Assange’s battles with the Obama administration.


In the interview, Mr. Assange told a British television host, Robert Peston of the ITV network, that his organization had obtained “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication,” which he pronounced “great.” He also suggested that he not only opposed her candidacy on policy grounds, but also saw her as a personal foe.

At one point, Mr. Peston said: “Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?”


Mr. Assange replied that what Mr. Trump would do as president was “completely unpredictable.” By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Mrs. Clinton would wield power in two ways he found problematic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

Wikileaks wants to Make America Great Again.

Wikileaks bragged about the fact that Trump was ahead in the poll of polls (for a hot minute) as well.

Some of the more extreme elements in political discourse find themselves in reversed roles--the Neocons/Weekly Standard crowd find themselves rooting for Trump to lose to Clinton, and The Intercept/Greenwald/Wikileaks/Putin are rooting for Clinton to lose to Trump.

[anoNY42]

8. I see

Would have been fine with Assange releasing the emails as soon as he had them? Or do you think he should not have released the emails at all?

I think he would have looked better had he released them immediately, rather than wait. However, I am still fine with Wikileaks releasing what they get (assuming they can vouch that the info is genuine).

[geek tragedy]

9. The emails were criminally stolen, not leaked, by Russia in an attempt to rig our election.

Wikileaks is an accessory to Watergate-style ratfucking by a hostile foreign government.

I am not cool with publishing internal DNC emails about how we're trying to defeat Trump, as well as Wikileaks doxxing individuals who donated to the DNC.

[anoNY42]

11. Criminally stolen

But that would mean the Pentagon Papers were stolen as well, does that make them any less important? Wouldn't all whistleblowing be somewhat akin to "stealing" from their bosses?

None of this changes the fact that the DNC wrote those emails and screwed itself by acting in a partisan manner.

[geek tragedy]

13. there were some catty emails inside the DNC and DWS obviously tried to suck up to Clinton

as DNC chair.

But, the DNC didn't determine who won the race--Sanders was easily able to overcome the debate schedule and DWS, and in fact rather cleverly did some ju jitsu and used that fact to increase the motivation of their supporters and to raise a ton of money

[anoNY42]

14. I agree that it wasn't covering up a murder or anything

but the email scandal was damaging for a week or so, considering it was on TV all day every day during the convention.

My point is just that Wikileaks did what it was created to do, which is leak stuff that was given to it. In this day and age, even the DNC should have been aware that their emails were vulnerable (just like everyone should be). I am not excusing any hacking or spying, but that is not what Assange and Wikileaks did.

It would have been more noble for Assange to have released the emails immediately once they were vetted, but unfortunately he chose to try to meddle a bit by holding onto them for effect. However, the emails were going to come out one way or another once Wikileaks got them.

[treestar]

10. Then why don't they do the same to the Republicans?

I mean surely there's some good dirt there that would make the DNC look like little sinners.

Why should Democrats be OK with that?

[anoNY42]

12. Oh I agree

that if Wikileaks has Republican party emails they should also release them. Although it seems Assange might not do that because he doesn't like Hillary (in which case, I would criticize him for playing favorites when his organization's mission is to expose wrongdoing regardless of who is doing it).

Edit: Let's be clear though, it was Russia who likely did the hacking, so if they hacked the RNC and did not send those files to Wikileaks, then there would be nothing for Assange to publish. I am not saying Russia was right to hack anybody, I am talking about Wikileaks' role.

[Cha]

2. K&R~

[Native]

3. "Axis of Evil - Bush, Rumsfeld, & Cheney" immediately came to mind when I saw this headline.

[DemonGoddess]

7. K&R!