Unless you live under a rock, chances are you know that WikiLeaks founder and Australian computer programmer Julian Assange was arrested in London this morning. Assange established WikiLeaks — “an international non-profit organization that publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified media provided by anonymous sources” — in 2006.
Assange had been living at Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 until British authorities arrested him today.
Opinions on Assange and what should be done with him has varied since this information was revealed today. But one person that’s unsurprisingly attempting to dodge the bullet is none other than the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
In Trump’s first reaction to Assange’s arrest, he claimed to have absolutely no knowledge of WikiLeaks, claiming “it’s not my thing.”
At first glance, this sounds like typical Trump rhetoric — “I don’t know. I had nothing to do with it,” so on and so forth. But what makes Trump’s revelation even more interesting is the fact that he has actually praised the very organization that he now claims to know nothing about in the past.
Video footage quickly began to circulate of Trump on his 2016 campaign trail, applauding the WikiLeaks organization.
In one piece of footage, you can hear him say, “WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks!”
Not only is there actual video proof of him singing the praises of the organization that’s “not his thing,” even when MSNBC documented 141 different references to WikiLeaks made by Trump during his campaign — CNBC’s Christina Wilkie has also just reported that Trump was so fond of Assange that he has poster of him in his campaign’s debate war room that was captioned, “Dear Hillary, I miss reading your classified emails.”
Trump literally had a poster of Julian Assange up on the wall in his 2016 presidential campaign debate war room. It featured Assange saying: “Dear Hillary, I miss reading your classified emails.”
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) April 11, 2019
It’s certainly not uncommon for Trump to quickly attempt to deny any association or guilt, but here lately his blatant lying seems to be increasing, as well. He seems to be doubling down on his refusal to think before he speaks — uttering complete bullshit when there is actual damning evidence otherwise.
Featured image via screen capture
