MOSCOW (Sputnik) — WikiLeaks began publishing the emails from the hacked account of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta on October 8 and has continued to publish thousands of emails per day of since then. The revelations included Clinton receiving leaks from CNN on planned questions for televised debates, as well as attempts to shift the dates of primaries to give Clinton an advantage over her rival Bernie Sanders.
"During the election campaign, the mainstream media hardly mentioned them at all, but hoped nobody would notice or it would go away. What they mentioned was only to say it was Russian, and then avoid discussing the content. And now, afterwards, they are still not mentioning the WikiLeaks revelations as a major factor in influencing the results of this election. So it's quite extraordinary, the mainstream media are totally and utterly in denial as to what has happened," Murray said.
Another leak occurred in July, when the whistleblower website published nearly 20,000 of hacked emails that apparently showed Democratic National Committee (DNC) members discussing ways to undercut Sanders in the race for the party’s nomination. The publication led to several party officials resigning. Clinton has accused Russian hackers of the leak.
WikiLeaks Goal to Publish Leaks, Not to Bring Down Clinton in Election
The goal of the WikiLeaks was not to hack US Democratic Party emails but to publish information leaked by those frustrated with the party's former presidential nominee Clinton, Murray told Sputnik.
"I think there’s no doubt whatsoever that Julian and the Wikileaks had a major impact on this election. Although it is in line with what he wrote 10 years ago, about political parties and how they needed to be exposed, I don't think it was then a plan that was set into action. WikiLeaks did not set out to hack the Democrats and get this information, WikiLeaks is a publisher, and they publish stuff that is given to them," Murray said.
Clinton has accused Russian hackers of being behind the leak, while Assange in a pre-election interview aired by RT personally dismissed the claims, adding that Clinton falsely alleged that over a dozen US intelligence agencies had traced the leak to Russia.
"What happened in this case was that people in the American establishment, who are absolutely sickened by the corruption of the Clintons, leaked this stuff to WikiLeaks. It was people very much within the American establishment who were just sickened by the cheating and the corruption they saw," Murray stressed.
Clinton eventually lost the election to her Republican rival Donald Trump, who won with 290 electoral votes, while Clinton received 232 votes despite winning the popular vote by a margin of over 200,000.
