Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, appears on the brink of being publicly charged after US prosecutors accidentally named him in court filings.

The US investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is known to be looking into how Mr Assange’s outfit published thousands of hacked Democratic Party emails before the vote.

A filing made in the Eastern District of Virginia on Thursday discussed procedures ”to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged”.

Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Virginia, said: “The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”

It remains unknown whether Mr Assange has been secretly charged already, if he will be soon or if the filing was just a complete mistake. It is also unclear what the potential charges could entail.

The development sparked speculation that US prosecutors are moving against Mr Assange in what would be a dramatic escalation in their long-running battle.

Mr Assange, an Australian computer programmer, first came to international attention in 2010 when his platform Wikileaks published a slew of leaked US diplomatic cables.

Wikileaks has faced scrutiny for publishing hacked emails from the Democratic Party and the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Kremlin election meddling, has charged Russian online trolls with attempting to undermine Mrs Clinton’s campaign.

Mr Assange has lived in Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012, having received political asylum from the South American country to avoid possible extradition to Sweden in a separate sexual assault case.

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Any charges brought against Mr Assange would have significant diplomatic consequences, with the UK government under pressure to extradite him to the US.

Barry Pollack, a US lawyer for Mr Assange, said in a statement: "The notion that federal criminal charges could be brought based on the publication of truthful information is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set.”

In a statement on Friday, Wikileaks said Mr Assange was willing to work with British officials as long he was not extradited to the United States. Ecuadorean officials had no immediate comment on Friday.

On social network Twitter, Wikileaks said the court filings were an "apparent cut-and-paste error."

In an unrelated development, Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that he was formally responding to a string of questions sent by Mr Mueller - something which the special counsel has long sought.

Mr Trump said he was personally coming up with the responses and that the questions were "simple", adding that he believed the Russia probe would be soon coming to an end.