Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa confirmed Tuesday that Ecuador was aware of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
What We Know:
- It was also confirmed that Assange was doing all of this illegal activity from Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum. In 2012, Correa gave Assange asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations that he denied.
- The two also aligned after Wikileaks published highly classified Pentagon materials, showing how both of them used an anti-U.S. attitude to rise to power.
- On Monday, just a day before, CNN published a report about other surveillance reports that described how Assange transformed the Ecuadorian embassy into a center for his interference and “orchestrated a series of damaging disclosures” that rocked the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
- “We did notice that he was interfering in the elections and we do not allow that because we have principles, very clear values, as we would not like anyone to interfere in our elections…We are not going to allow that to happen with a foreign country and friend like the US.” Correa stated.
- The report reveals surveillance documents stating that Assange met with Russians and hackers at critical moments and got powerful new computing and network hardware to successfully transfer data weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from Russian operatives.
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“WikiLeaks’ justification was that they were providing truthful information,” Correa told CNN. “Sure, but (it) was just about Hillary Clinton. Not about (Donald) Trump. So, they were not saying all the truth. And not saying all the truth is called manipulation. And we are not going to allow that.”
- These leaks hurt Clinton while she attempted to unite her liberal base as she secured the Democratic nomination. They also gave Trump a survival method when his campaign was on the brink of collapse in October 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape came out.
- In the interview, Correa also distanced himself from Assange, stating that the only time they have talked was when “he interviewed me when he worked for Russia Today, via Skype.”
These reports of election interference are far from over.
