Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Trump 'was making a joke' when he repeatedly said he loved WikiLeaks during 2016 campaign, Sanders says

'I love WikiLeaks', Mr Trump said in 2016

Clark Mindock
New York
Sunday 14 April 2019 20:16 BST
Comments
Sarah Sanders insists Trump was joking when he repeatedly praised WikiLeaks in 2016

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has claimed Donald Trump was simply joking when he repeatedly praised WikiLeaks and declared his love of the platform.

Ms Sanders, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, defended the president when questioned over his claim he knows “nothing about” WikiLeaks in the wake of the arrest of Julian Assange.

“Look clearly the president was making a joke during the 2016 campaign, certainly we take this seriously,” Ms Sanders said.

WikiLeaks became major player in the 2016 election after stolen emails from Mr Trump’s political rival’s campaign were published on the website. Emails from the Democratic National Committee were also published.

“I love WikiLeaks,” Mr Trump said during a rally in October 2016.

Ms Sanders continued to claim that the Trump administration deserves credit for Mr Assange’s arrest in London, and said that the current president is the first president to take WikiLeaks’ alleged crimes seriously.

The Obama administration was heavily critical of Mr Assange, but ultimately declined to charge him out of concern for the implications of those charges for press freedoms in the US.

The former Army intelligence analyst who leaked thousands of US government documents to WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, was tried and sentenced to prison time during the Obama administration, but Barack Obama commuted her sentence before leaving office after seven years of detention.

“Our administration is the only one that’s done anything about it. Let’s not forget that the reason Julian Assange is being looked at is because of the engagement that he had with Chelsea Manning,” Ms Sanders told Mr Wallace on Sunday.

“That individual is the person that the Obama administration actually commuted their sentence. We’re the only ones who have taken this whole process seriously, and actually doing something to solve the problem,” she continued.

Assange has been accused by the US government of conspiring to help Ms Manning to break into Department of Defense databases, so that those documents could then be published on WikiLeaks.

'I told you so' Julian Assange's lawyer relays message from the Wikileaks founder

He was separately convicted of skipping bail in the UK by fleeing to London's Ecuadorian embassy to avoid a Swedish arrest warrant in 2012.

Assage faces years in a British prison in an upcoming legal battle over the attempt to extradite him to the US.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in