Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said Monday that a “rendezvous” is being set up between him and President Donald Trump to relay information he received from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the hack of the Democratic National Committee last year.
Rohrabacher, who is considered to be among the most pro-Russia members in Congress, met with Assange earlier this month and claims Assange told him that Russia was not involved in the hacking. Rohrabacher said after the meeting that he wanted to brief Trump on what Assange told him. Appearing on the Sean Hannity radio show Monday afternoon, the California congressman said that meeting was in the process of being set up.
“It is my understanding from other parties who are trying to arrange a rendezvous with myself and the President, it is being arranged for me to give him the firsthand information from (Assange),” Rohrabacher said.
Earlier in the interview, Rohrabacher said evidence he saw painted the Democratic National Committee hack being an “inside job,” a claim Rohrabacher has made before. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified report in January revealing the conclusions from the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency that the Russian government was behind the hack of the DNC.
“If the information comes out, there will be an outrage among the American people that their time has been wasted,” Rohrabacher said. “They’ve had this story over and over and again shoved down their throats as if the Russians colluded with Donald Trump, and this is an attempt, as I say, to negate their vote in the ballot booth. When the American people realize that this is a con job and a power grab they’ll be upset.”
“I’m trying to get this out in the public now where we can get this Julian Assange thing straightened out so that people know that it wasn’t the Russians that hacked into the system, and that’s not how this information was released,” he said.
The White House did not return a request for comment on Rohrabacher’s comments. Reached for comment, Rohrabacher said only that interviews must be set up through his communications director and then ended the call. Rohrabacher’s communications director Ken Grubbs, who said the congressman was in a meeting when CNN called, declined to comment on the specifics of any arrangement with the White House.
This story has been updated with comment from Rohrabacher’s communications director and additional context about the intelligence community’s January assessment of attempted Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
