Julian Assange suggested WikiLeaks was a natural home for the email dump connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. | AP Photo Assange denies WikiLeaks trying to influence election outcome

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday defended the group’s decision to post troves of Democratic documents during the height of the election season, saying a moral imperative drove them to do so.

“This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election,” he wrote in a 1,000 word statement posted as Americans streamed to the polls on Election Day. “The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers … Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.”


Assange specifically cited the decision by The New York Times to withhold evidence of George W. Bush’s surveillance program in 2004, which Assange asserts “probably secured his reelection.”

He also suggested WikiLeaks was a natural home for the email dump connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign because the group had posted many Clinton diplomatic cables years earlier. And he pushed back against the idea that WikiLeaks worked in conjunction with Russia to expose the messages.

“The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia,” he added. “The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists.”

Clinton’s campaign has steadfastly refused to corroborate the authenticity of most of the posted WikiLeaks emails. As of Tuesday morning, when thousands more emails were posted, WikiLeaks had published more than 50,000 emails hacked from account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The trove produced reams of behind the scenes revelation – from the text of Clinton’s paid Wall Street speeches to campaign strategy notes to hiring decisions.

Assange also indicated that he would have published a similar cache from Donald Trump’s campaign if it had been provided.

“At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have,” Assange wrote. “To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria.”

