“[Google] is directly engaged in Hillary Clinton’s campaign” claimed Julian Assange at a Moscow journalism forum on Tuesday.

The Wikileaks founder who is still under investigation by the Swedish government over allegations of sexual assault was speaking via video link to the “New Era of Journalism: Farewell to Mainstream” forum in Moscow when he made the claim that tech giant Google was complicit in the running of Hillary Clinton’s digital campaign.

Specifically, Assange claimed, “The chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, set up a company to run the digital component of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Eric Schmidt did in fact create a company in the last quarter of 2015 called The Groundwork whose website is empty except for a single placeholder logo. Breitbart has previously reported on The Groundwork and how it was reportedly developed to install Clinton in the Oval Office. However, whether or not Google itself is a part of Schmidts’ involvement in The Groundwork remains unclear to the public.

Assange pointed out that many high up Google employee names appear within Clinton’s leaked email transcripts, a searchable list of which Assange has compiled here. A name that appears with regularity is that of Jared Cohen, the founder of ‘Google Ideas’ – now rebranded as ‘Jigsaw’. Cohen’s team at Google was revealed to be working with Clinton alongside Al Jazeera in attempts to influence regime change in Syria following the publishing of Clinton’s emails by Wikileaks.

“We should understand that Google… is intensely aligned with U.S. exceptionalism… personally at the top aligned with Hillary Clinton’s election campaign and almost certainly once Hillary Clinton becomes president, those people in Google, like Jared Cohen, will be placed into positions around the new Clinton presidency” said Assange, heavily implying that Google and it’s employees could directly benefit from a Clinton presidency.

Assange highlighted the alarming control that Google has over its users’ data and the information received and kept by the search engine giant.

“Google controls 80 percent of the smartphone market through its control of Android and if you control the device itself – that people use to read – then anything that they connect to through that device you have control over as well.”

Outside of the native OS found on Apple’s iPhone, Google’s monopoly on remaining smartphone market may be behind why companies such as Samsung are considering dropping Android in favour of their own OS.

It’s not hard to imagine how any form of manipulation of certain search returns and political polls may greatly benefit a presidential candidate or push a political agenda. If Assange is correct in his assertion that links Google to the Clinton campaign, then the search engine could have a major impact on the Presidential race. Assange also pointed out that Google has had no trouble working with the Obama administration.

“Google has gotten into bed with the Obama administration in a very significant way,” stated Assange. “It is the company that visits the White House more than any other – averaged once per week in the last 4 years.”

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