Assange's internet was curtailed by the Ecuadorian Embassy the very next day. But WikiLeaks quickly retaliated, issuing a cryptic message that a leak against Ecuador was on its way. The tactic seemed to work. Two months later, Assange said in an interview that his internet had been restored. Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno has looked for ways to remove Julian Assange from the London embassy. Credit:AP Assange has been hailed by many around the world as a champion of transparency and a casualty of his own success at revealing secrets. But Ecuadorian officials contend that the expulsion comes from an extensive list of transgressions by Assange that soured their long — and often strained — relationship.

In explaining his decision to oust the WikiLeaks leader, Moreno accused Assange of installing electronic distortion equipment in the embassy, blocking security cameras, confronting and mistreating guards and gaining access to security files without permission. Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested and dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Credit:ninevms On Thursday, the government said it had also arrested a computer programmer in Ecuador in connection with the Assange case, contending that WikiLeaks had interfered in Ecuador's domestic political affairs. WikiLeaks insisted that it was not involved in the hack of Moreno's phones, and that the Ecuadorian government was using the episode as a false pretext to toss out Assange. Assange's odyssey with Ecuador began in 2012, when he skipped a bail hearing to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning in connection to accusations of "rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion."

Ecuador's president at the time, Rafael Correa, had been criticized in his own country for a crackdown against the press. But in Assange, the Ecuadorian president found a symbol of his challenge to the United States, which he called an imperialist power. Assange was free to stay in the embassy as long as he pleased, Correa said. Julian Assange is arrested by British police on Thursday. Credit:Nine But by 2016, a change in power was afoot in both the United States and in Ecuador. Hillary Clinton, who had run the State Department during the enormous leak of information by WikiLeaks in 2010, was running for president. Assange also had reason to worry about the coming election in Ecuador, where his stay in the embassy was becoming a campaign issue as well. On October 7, 2016, a tape was leaked showing Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, boasting of sexually harassing women while filming a segment for the show "Access Hollywood," sending Trump's campaign into a major crisis. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks began publishing the first of thousands of hacked emails from Podesta's account, creating a different controversy in the Clinton camp.

WikiLeaks continued to release the emails throughout October on a daily basis. U.S. intelligence agents later concluded that the documents had been hacked by Russian operatives and laundered through WikiLeaks. Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno. Credit:AP When Ecuador restricted Assange's internet access in response, Correa's administration said that it had acted on its own accord, not because of pressure from the United States. A spokesman for Kerry also denied that the Obama administration played any role. But during the encounter October 14 — the night before Assange's internet access was restricted — Patsy Thomasson, a veteran of the Clinton White House, and a senior aide to Kerry attended a dinner at the Ecuadorian Embassy hosted by Francisco Borja, the ambassador of Ecuador. Attendees interviewed said it struck them as odd that such high-powered players would decide to attend a party hosted by a small country's ambassador. They noted that neither Thomasson nor the Kerry aide were dressed for the ball, and that both stayed behind with the ambassador after other guests left for the event.

Thomasson, reached by phone, said that she had been invited at the very last minute by someone whose wife couldn't come, and that she did not recall having any conversations with the ambassador, "much less about Julian Assange." Former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa. Credit:AP WikiLeaks struck back soon after. On October 16, the day after Assange's internet was restricted, WikiLeaks tweeted a code, known in its parlance as an "insurance file," and signalled that an upcoming leak involving Ecuador was imminent. According to former WikiLeaks insiders, Assange had damaging information about Ecuador and wasn't bluffing. Assange certainly seemed to have acquired compromising material. In 2015, Cynthia Viteri, a prominent Ecuadorian politician, and Fernando Villavicencio, an Ecuadorian political journalist, had gotten secret documents showing that Ecuador was running a surveillance program, using an Italian company to spy on journalists and political enemies, in addition to spying on Assange at the embassy.

Villavicencio said he sent the material to a WikiLeaks email address, hoping the organization would publish the information. He eventually published the documents himself. WikiLeaks never did, though it is clear from leaked 2015 chat group logs from WikiLeaks Forum, a related site, that Assange and his inner circle were aware of them. New York Times