On last night’s episode of The Circus on Showtime, Mark Halperin was seen doing an old fashioned stakeout outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, hoping to receive word from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself. The digital fortress for global transparency has found itself front and center on the 2016 race for the White House, with the site serving as ground zero for the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta in recent weeks.

In the clip, Halperin can be seen using a go-between to get word to Assange in London at the Embassy, where the enigmatic founder has been living under diplomatic asylum since 2012: “What aspect of the Podesta emails do you think the US media has underreported?” was the question posed. The answer given by Assange in a clandestine way (and later authenticated by Assange’s lawyers): the single world response, “Everything.”

“It’s fascinating. It’s scary,” said The Circus‘ co-creator and executive producer (and former President George W. Bush staffer) Mark McKinnon on Morning Joe Monday, who noted that “brilliant, paranoid guy,” Assange is now facing unprecedented pressure.

“[Assange is] a fascinating, compelling, interesting character,” McKinnon said Monday. “He could be very easily extradited, or double-extradited, to the Unites States with Hillary Clinton as President.”

Amid the trove of leaked Podesta emails — which have been steadily drip, drip, dripping now for two weeks — Assange’s internet accessibility was disabled by Ecuador as a signal that it does not support the independent goings-on of WikiLeaks or Assange, maintaining neutrality in the United States elections. “The squeeze is on him,” McKinnon said of Assange. “He’s in the embassy, they’ve cut off his internet.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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[image via screengrab]

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