Fox News host Tucker Carlson published an op-ed recently in which he states that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s true sin was stopping Hillary Clinton from becoming President.

In an op-ed titled “Assange’s real sin was preventing Hillary Clinton from becoming president,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson states that the true reason that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being targeted is that he prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming President of the United States. In the op-ed Carlson defends Assange’s actions and instead points to Bradley Manning as the source of U.S. security leaks.

In the op-ed, Carlson writes:

If you watched a lot of the coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest on television Thursday, you likely came away with the understanding that he is some kind of Russian spy who is in trouble because he stole classified documents from the U.S. government. That is not true. It’s factually incorrect, and saying so is not a defense of Assange. We’re not here to promote him or excuse any number of things he said over the years that we disagree with quite a lot. But just so it’s clear, whatever his sins, Assange did not steal documents from the United States government. He did not hack the DNC servers. He didn’t break into John Podesta’s Gmail account. There is no proof that he is working for the Russian government or ever has worked for the Russian government. Assange has never been charged with any of that and wasn’t on Thursday, no matter what they tell you. If you’re upset about the theft of classified documents from the U.S. government — and there is reason to be — we already know who did that. A 22- year-old Army private named Bradley Manning, now called Chelsea Manning. In 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to stealing secret material and got 35 years in prison for it. Shortly after that, President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence. This allowed Manning to leave jail decades early, go back on television as a commentator, and then run for political office.

Carlson asks, why make such a huge deal over Assange when many other worse criminals have faced far less scrutiny:

So what’s going on here? A couple of things. First, Julian Assange embarrassed virtually everyone in power in Washington. He published documents that undermined the official story on the Iraq War and Afghanistan. He got Debbie Wasserman-Schultz fired from the DNC. He humiliated Hillary Clinton by showing that the Democratic primaries were, in fact, rigged. Pretty much everyone in Washington has reason to hate Julian Assange. Rather than just admit that straightforwardly – that he made us look like buffoons, so now we’re sending him to prison — instead, they’re denouncing him as, you guessed it, a Russian agent. “Justice should come to Julian Assange for his role in Russian meddling in our election and the sooner the better,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Okay, so once again, just to be totally clear, no one has ever shown that Julian Assange is a Russian agent. The indictment against him does not say that; t doesn’t mention Russia at all. But that has not stopped virtually every politician in Washington from repeating Senator Blumenthal’s line, including many Republicans. Robert Mueller nearly killed the Russia collusion hoax. Julian Assange is allowing them to keep it alive.

Carlson suggests that the reason to punished Julian Assange is Hillary Clinton:

So why all the hostility to Julian Assange? Assange’s real sin was preventing Hillary Clinton from becoming president. Former Democratic staffer and current CNN anchor Jim Sciutto explained it this way: “He is central to several cases. He is central to Russian interference in the election. The U.S. intelligence views him as a middleman, a cutout that he was in effect part of this interference. He’s central to questions about what the Trump administration or Trump campaign, I should say, knew prior to the release of those materials, right? What were the communications between Roger Stone, et cetera? It’s possible that this has something President Trump himself is not particularly excited about.” It’s remarkable to watch this. It’s bewildering, actually. There was a time, not so long ago, really, when reporters didn’t applaud the arrest of other journalists for publishing information.

Read the full op-ed by Carlson at Fox News here.