Wikileaks founder Julian Assange refused Monday to say whether Russian hackers were responsible for the leak of damning emails which ultimately forced Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign.
Asked on CNN’s “New Day” if Russia was behind the hack, Assange fired back, “Well, what sort of question is that? I am a journalist. We don’t reveal our sources.”
“So what is the accusation here precisely?” Assange said in an interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow. “The goal of wikileaks as a media organization is to educate the public, to turn a dark world into a lighter world through the process of education, and we’re doing it.”
Emails from top DNC staff showing they favored Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary led Wasserman Schultz to offer her resignation, just as the Democratic convention was beginning in Philadelphia last week. Assange told CNN last week that he timed the release of the emails for the start of the convention and also said he had more emails he would be releasing about the Clinton campaign.
Some have blamed Russian hackers on the breach — and federal investigators are examining whether the Clinton campaign was hacked by Russian operators.
Donald Trump, whose ties to Russia have come under scrutiny, came under fire last week after he said that Russian hackers should search for thousands of emails missing from Clinton’s private email server. He later said he was being sarcastic.