HAYDEN COOPER, PRESENTER: President Barack Obama has promised to take action in retaliation for suspected Russian cyber-attacks that potentially influenced the outcome of last month's election.

US intelligence agencies believe Russian hackers were responsible for breaking into the Democratic National Committee's servers and releasing embarrassing emails through websites such as WikiLeaks.

Overnight WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, declared the Russian Government was not the source for the leaked emails. Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, resisting extradition to Sweden, where he is facing an allegation of rape.

Earlier I spoke to Julian Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson.

Jennifer Robinson, welcome.

Why should we believe Julian Assange when he says that the Russian Government was not the source?

JENNIFER ROBINSON, LAWYER FOR JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, WikiLeaks has a strict policy on never commenting on sources. The entire purpose of the organisation is to protect sources.

And in this case he has decided - which is unusual - to speak out to say definitively that this did not come from a state source. We have to believe him and I think that it's important we do.

The information that's been put about in the media in recent days has come from anonymous CIA sources which, I think, need to be approached with a healthy amount of scepticism. We have seen the CIA mislead the public on numerous occasions in the past, not least of which is the Iraq war.

And one needs to ask the question in the absence of absolute evidence, where there are circumstances where the FBI disputes the evidence, where James Clapper, the head of the - director of National Intelligence has said that the link between WikiLeaks and Russia is not strong. We haven't had evidence to prove it. People need to approach this with a health amount of scepticism.

HAYDEN COOPER: Do you think that the intelligence agencies are deliberately trying to de-legitimise Donald Trump's victory in saying that Russia was responsible for the hack?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: I think the timing of the discussion around this is interesting: just ahead of the Electoral College vote.

But in the end, I think the WikiLeaks issue is being caught up in domestic politics of the US and starting a narrative like this, about Russia and the US: building this kind of narrative creates incredible geo-political pressure, which I think is irresponsible.

And we need to have hard evidence before those kinds of serious accusations are made, not least in that geo-political context between the US and Russia.

But certainly when it comes to WikiLeaks, as a publishing organisation that's been under criminal investigation, feeding in this narrative into an ongoing national security investigation of an Australian citizen in the United States is incredibly serious and these allegations ought not be made without actual factual evidence. Anonymous sources are not enough.

HAYDEN COOPER: I do notice, though, that Julian Assange said the source is not the Russian Government. It doesn't mean that there wasn't someone in the chain who is linked to the Russian Government, whether or not the final person who handed over the information is linked or not?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: In the end, I think this entire discussion: again, we need hard evidence of what took place.

But the emails that were released from the Democratic representatives have been proven to be legitimate information and have demonstrated corruption within the Democratic Party. They've demonstrated in - they've been in the public interest. They provided important information in the decision-making around the US election and that is material in the public interest.

Like any other publishing organisation, if WikiLeaks had received material about the Trump campaign and had sat on that information, it would have been an absolute scandal.

They are a transparency organisation. They publish information in the public interest that they receive. They don't hack information.

And that information was in the public interest. They published it.

HAYDEN COOPER: There seems to have been a remarkable transformation of Julian Assange. He used to be the darling of the left. Now some are saying, basically, he's in bed with the so-called "alt-right" in the USA. How does that make you feel as his lawyer?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: As someone who has represented Julian for more than six years, I remember very clearly when WikiLeaks was releasing CableGate: documenting evidence of war crimes, documenting evidence of human rights abuse.

He was the darling of the liberal, progressive, elite media. In fact, people on Fox News were calling for his assassination, calling for him to be arrested.

WikiLeaks is doing exactly the same thing in publishing material in the public interest. It just doesn't suit certain political interests at this time. And why should they change their mission? It just demonstrates the politics and the partisanship of those who criticise the organisation now, just because it doesn't suit their politics. They're doing exactly the same thing as they did before.

HAYDEN COOPER: Is Julian Assange hopeful that President Trump will drop the investigation into WikiLeaks? And have you made approaches to his team: to President Trump's team?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Trump made some very - President-elect Trump made some very positive comments about WikiLeaks during the course of the election. I think that it is... we do have hopes that there will be a distinct change between the Obama administration and any new administration.

The grand jury investigation is of unprecedented side and scale. It is the biggest investigation into a publisher in history. It causes great problems for the first amendment and for free speech.

On the Department of Justice's own rules, the grand jury ought to be closed down and we made numerous representations to the Obama administration and we will continue to make those to any future US administration.

Free speech groups had called for the Obama administration to close it and those same free speech groups and our legal team will continue to call for that investigation to be closed in the future.

HAYDEN COOPER: Any response yet from the transition team for Donald Trump?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: We haven't had any formal communication yet, but we obviously will continue to reach out to them in the future.

HAYDEN COOPER: Now, on the rape allegations in Sweden: Julian Assange gave a statement to Swedish prosecutors last month. Is there any update on that? And are you hopeful or is there any sign that the Swedish authorities might actually drop the case?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: I want to correct you there and say there's only one rape allegation; and it's not rape as we understand it in Australian law.

It is an allegation that was dropped by the chief prosecutor in Stockholm back in 2010 on the grounds that the information provided did not disclose any crime.

Six years later, after six years of us demanding that the prosecutor take his statement, she has finally taken it. And Julian has since published his statement so that the public can see the truth of the story and his side of the story, indeed, that has been, he's been offering for six years. We certainly hope that the investigation will now come to a close on an impartial and objective consideration of the facts.

But this is a situation where the UN has ruled that an Australian citizen is arbitrarily detained: an unlawful status under international law. For six years he has been detained. I have been visiting him in a - he's been in a room for four-and-a-half-years without any access to sunlight.

As a lawyer, but as an Australian citizen, it is heartbreaking that an Australian citizen is in that circumstance. And the Australian Government is doing nothing. It is time that we start to do something for an Australian citizen who is in a very difficult situation.

HAYDEN COOPER: All right. We're out of time. Jennifer Robinson, thanks very much.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: You're very welcome.