Julian Assange tells Megyn Kelly why WikiLeaks isn't releasing dirt on Donald Trump

(Image credit: Fox News/YouTube)

last updated 29 August 2016

On Wednesday's Kelly File, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Megyn Kelly that his organization would release potentially "significant" information on Hillary Clinton before the November election, and on Thursday's show, Kelly played the part of the interview where Assange talks about Donald Trump. "You're clearly not rooting for Hillary, but are you rooting for Trump?" Kelly asked. "No, I mean, if we have good information on Trump, we publish that," Assange said.

"You know, some people have asked us, 'When will you release information on Donald Trump?'" Assange said later. "And of course we're very interested in all countries, to reveal the truth about any candidate, so people can understand, but actually it's really hard for us to release anything worse than what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth every second day. I mean, it's part of his charismatic appeal that he speaks off the cuff, but, you know, that's difficult for Donald Trump to overcome, a lot of those things, even with a lot of great material coming out by WikiLeaks and other publications."

If that sounds like WikiLeaks is trying to help Trump, remember, Assange says he isn't taking sides. And he doesn't want you to blame Russian hackers for the Democratic National Committee leaks or other Democratic Party cyber-infiltration, as the U.S. intelligence community does. "The allegations by the Clinton campaign that everyone is a Russian agent are really disturbing," Assange said. "Why is that? Well, bizarrely, Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, has become, has positioned herself now, as being the security candidate. She's palled up with the neocons responsible for the Iraq War and she's grabbed on to this sort of neo-McCarthyist hysteria about Russia, and is using that to demonize the Trump campaign."

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Kelly also asked about WikiLeaks' interest in murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, and Assange suggested that Rich was a WikiLeaks source but declined to accuse anyone of his murder. She also asked about an Associated Press report outlining private information on rape victims, gay Saudis, and other "collateral damage" in some of Assange's dumps. "Well, it's a nonsense report," he said. "Its not by AP, it's not some big team at AP who put this together, it's by a single journalist... who has a conflict of interest — have a look at him on Twitter." You can watch the entire segment below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.