WikiLeaks allied with Russians to aid Trump: Clinton

Hillary Clinton yesterday accused WikiLeaks of working with Russia todeflect attention from an infamous tape of Donald Trump bragging aboutgroping women in the run-up to last year’s US presidential election. Theformer secretary of state’s loss to Trump remains raw and she againlashed out at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his alleged role indamaging her candidacy.“Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does thebidding of a dictator,” she said in an interview with the AustralianBroadcasting Corp, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.“WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully-owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence.”The US intelligence community concluded Putin ordered an influencecampaign to discredit Clinton and had a “clear preference” for Trump inthe election.Clinton used the bombshell Trump tape as an example of how WikiLeaksallegedly tried to deflect attention from a bad news story, resurrectingthe incident in the wake of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s fallfrom grace over his treatment of women.In the 2005 videotape, which surfaced in October last year, Trump bragged about being able to get away with groping women.“When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said. “You can do anything,” Trump added.Trump said the comments were “locker-room banter”. Several womensubsequently accused him of sexual misconduct, which he denounced aslies.Within hours of the tape emerging, WikiLeaks published more than 2,000hacked e-mails from the personal account of Clinton’s campaign chairJohn Podesta, which she said blunted its impact.“WikiLeaks, which in the world in which we find ourselves promisedhidden information, promised some kind of secret that might be ofinfluence, was a very clever, diabolical response to the HollywoodAccess tape,” she said, referring to the Trump recording.“And I’ve no doubt in my mind that there was some communication if notco-ordination to drop those the first time in response to the HollywoodAccess tape.”Reacting on Twitter, Assange attacked Clinton as “creepy”.“There’s something wrong with Hillary Clinton. It is not just her constant lying.It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwartedentitlement,” the Australian tweeted with a link to the ABC interview.“Watch closely. Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.”Clinton claimed WikiLeaks’ actions were motivated by Assange’s personal dislike of her.“I had a lot of history with him because I was secretary of state whenWikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our StateDepartment and our Defence Department,” she said.“If he’s such a martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks everpublish anything coming out of Russia? You don’t see damaging, negativeinformation coming out about the Kremlin on WikiLeaks,” Clinton added.Assange has spent five years inside the Ecuador embassy in London amidfears that he will be arrested if he leaves, extradited to the UnitedStates and put on trial for WikiLeaks publishing leaked secret USmilitary documents and diplomatic cables in 2010. Swedish prosecutorsinitially wanted Assange extradited to face allegations of sexualassault, but they dropped their investigation into him in May 2017.However, he still faces arrest by British police for violating the terms of his 2012 probation.Assange has denied Russia was the source behind the leaked documents.