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- President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has no opinion on the recent arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and "knows nothing" about WikiLeaks.
- Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since being granted diplomatic asylum in 2012, was arrested Thursday morning after Ecuador formally revoked his asylum.
- Federal prosecutors in Virginia announced they were charging Assange with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, and requested that Assange be extradited to the United States.
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President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has no opinion on the recent arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and "knows nothing" about WikiLeaks, despite having spoken positively about the organization multiple times during the 2016 election.
"I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing. And I know there was something having to do with Julian Assange. I’ve been seeing what was happening with Assange," Trump told reporters. "That will be a determination, I would imagine, mostly by the attorney general, who is doing an excellent job."
Trump added that WikiLeaks isn’t "his deal in life" and said, “I don’t really have an opinion. The Attorney General will be involved in that and he will make a decision."
Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since being granted diplomatic asylum in 2012, was arrested Thursday morning after Ecuador formally revoked his diplomatic asylum.
Shortly following his arrest, the US requested that the UK formally extradite him to America to be tried.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia announced they were charging Assange with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. According to prosecutors, Assange assisted former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in hacking a password on a classified Pentagon computer.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised Assange and WikiLeaks for the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
"Getting off the plane, they were just announcing new WikiLeaks, and I wanted to stay there, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting," Trump said in November 2016. "Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks."
See Also:
- Julian Assange reportedly gave away his cat five months ago so it wouldn’t be trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy with him any more
- The weirdest anecdote about Julian Assange claims that he doesn’t like cutlery and eats hot food like jam pudding with his hands
- Video shows Julian Assange being forcibly removed from Ecuadorian Embassy after arrest by UK police
SEE ALSO: Here’s how WikiLeaks ‘threatened’ Ecuador before Julian Assange finally got arrested
Source: Business Insider – gpanetta@businessinsider.com (Grace Panetta)