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WikiLeaks to release 1 million documents before US election, says Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said the organisation will publish around one million documents related to three governments and the US election before the end of the year.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange vowed on Tuesday to publish “significant” new documents related to the US presidential elections ahead of the November 8 vote, as the online leaking platform celebrated its 10th birthday in a defiant mood.
Assange said the organisation will publish around one million documents related to the US election and three governments. But he denied the release was aimed at damaging Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, saying he had been misquoted.
He said the documents will be released before the end of the year, starting with an initial batch in the coming week.
“We hope to be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks. We have on schedule... all the US election-related documents to come out before November 8,” Assange, wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Truth”, told journalists via a video link from the Ecuadoran embassy in London where he has been holed up since 2012.
He described the material as “significant” with “a lot of fascinating angles”. He added, “Do they show interesting features on power factions and how they operate? Yes they do.”
Assange criticised Clinton for demonising WikiLeak’s work after a spate of releases related to the Democratic National Committee before the Democratic convention this summer.
He said her campaign had falsely suggested that accessing WikiLeaks data would make users vulnerable to malicious software.
But he denied the release of documents related to the U.S. election was specifically geared to damage Clinton.
Assange unveils changes for WikiLeaks
Assange, 45, signalled changes in the way WikiLeaks is organised and funded, saying the group will soon open itself to membership. He said the group was looking to expand its work beyond the 100 media outlets it works with.
He spoke via a video link at the event marking the 10th anniversary of the group’s founding. He remains in the Eucador embassy in London, where he sought refuge in 2012 to avoid possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he committed rape in 2010.
Assange denies the allegations and says he fears extradition to the US, where a criminal investigation into the activities of WikiLeaks is underway. He said Britain’s vote to leave the European Union could complicate his case by limiting his ability to appeal to the European Court of Justice.
Asked how he felt after four years in the embassy, he said “pale” and joked he would be a good candidate for medical study since he was otherwise healthy but had not seen the sun in more than four years.
Assange told a packed news conference at a Berlin theatre that WikiLeak’s work will continue, even if he had to resign in future. He appealed to supporters to fund the group’s work, and said several new books were forthcoming.
Taking aim at critics accusing him and WikiLeaks of manipulation, Assange pledged he would not be muzzled as he sought to raise “an army” of supporters to join in the defence of the organisation.
Assange has come under fresh pressure after WikiLeaks published some 20,000 internal emails on the eve of the US Democratic Party convention that forced top party officials to quit.
He said WikiLeaks was now the target of a witch hunt orchestrated in particular by Clinton, likening it to the repression of American communists in the 1950s driven by then senator Joseph McCarthy. But he said he would not back down.
Rather, WikiLeaks will scale up operations to “amplify our publications and to defend us against what is really a quite remarkable McCarthyist push in the US at the moment, principally by Hillary Clinton and her allies because she happens to be the person being exposed at the moment”, he said.
