Analysis: Why Trump’s non-answer on Julian Assange is so inexplicable
By Aaron Blake Aaron Blake Senior political reporter, writing for The Fix Email Bio Follow April 11 at 1:55 PM The Justice Department has revealed that it has charged Julian Assange, who is behind bars in Britain awaiting possible extradition to the United States. This has rendered unhelpful a whole lot of past commentary by President Trump.“I know nothing about WikiLeaks,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “It’s not my thing.
In fact, Trump mentioned WikiLeaks more than 100 times in just the final month of the 2016 campaign, according to Factba.se. Many of those times, he expressed admiration for the anti-secrecy group’s work. “This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable,” he said once. “Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks,” he said another time. Yet another time: “Oh, we love WikiLeaks. Boy, they have really — WikiLeaks! They have revealed a lot.”Trump’s decision to play down his past embrace of WikiLeaks is no surprise.
What’s most jarring about all of this, though, is that he once actually suggested the death penalty for those involved with WikiLeaks. He did this just six years before 2016, after WikiLeaks’ and Chelsea Manning’s Iraq and Afghanistan war disclosures.
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