National

In a U-turn, some Republicans now see WikiLeaks’ Assange in positive light

By Tim Johnson

tjohnson@mcclatchydc.com

January 04, 2017 11:17 AM

Vice President-elect Mike Pence responds to questions about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's assessments on Russian hacking in the presidential election during a press briefing on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, once considered a traitor by conservatives, is suddenly finding some love in important corners of the Republican Party.

Assange, who sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012 and has remained there since, gave a high-profile interview Tuesday night to Sean Hannity, the conservative Fox News commentator. The accolades then started pouring in.

Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, took back her previous suggestions that the U.S. military should hunt down and kill Assange, whose group published tens of thousands of secret U.S. war and diplomatic documents in 2010.

“To Julian Assange: I apologize,” Palin said in a tweet.

January 4, 2017
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President-elect Donald Trump tweeted several times early Wednesday about the Assange interview, suggesting that he believes the Australian muckraker is more trustworthy than the U.S. intelligence community when it comes to laying blame for hacking into U.S. institutions and politicians.

Trump referred in his first tweet to the hacking last summer of the Google email account of John Podesta, who was chairman of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. The Obama administration has blamed Russia for that penetration and others of the Democratic National Committee. Many of the emails were later published by WikiLeaks.

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“Julian Assange said ‘a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta’ – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” Trump tweeted.

He also repeated Assange’s criticism of traditional media in the United States.

January 4, 2017