"[Speaking about alleged Russian involvement in the US election process] they’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House… our source is not a state party, so the answer for our interactions [with Moscow] is no," Assange said in an interview that the Fox News broadcaster is expected to air on Tuesday night, according to The Hill newspaper.
He said that it was "impossible to tell" if WikiLeaks had influenced the results of the US vote, adding that the statements of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as such officials of the US Democratic Party, as John Podesta and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had "changed the election."
In the run-up to the US presidential election that took place on November 8, WikiLeaks released dozens of thousands of emails allegedly from the hacked account of Podesta, the chairman of Clinton's campaign. The emails showed the inner workings of the Clinton's campaign and certain discrepancies between her earlier views and the positions adopted later. During the election, Clinton lost the Electoral College votes to Trump.
Yet 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, as well as many other US officials have accused Russian hackers of the leak.
Despite the fact that Moscow had repeatedly refuted the reports of its alleged involvement in the hacking activities, on Thursday, US President Barack Obama's administration ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, the closure of two Russian diplomatic compounds and new sanctions against six Russian individuals and five entities over Moscow's alleged interference in the 2016 election.
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