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Donald Trump ‘offered Julian Assange a pardon if he denied Russia link to hack’

  • WikiLeaks published emails damaging to Hillary Clinton in 2016
  • Ex-congressman denies being middleman for US president

Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he would say Russia was not involved in leaking Democratic party emails, a court in London has been told.

The extraordinary claim was made at Westminster magistrates court before the opening next week of Assange’s legal battle to block attempts to extradite him to the US, where he faces charges for publishing hacked documents. The allegation was denied by the former Republican congressman named by the Assange legal team as a key witness.

Assange’s lawyers alleged that during a visit to London in August 2017, congressman Dana Rohrabacher told the WikiLeaks founder that “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks.”

A few hours later, however, Rohrabacher denied the claim, saying he had made the proposal on his own initiative, and that the White House had not endorsed it.

“At no time did I talk to President Trump about Julian Assange,” the former congressman wrote on his personal blog. “Likewise, I was not directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange. I was on my own fact finding mission at personal expense to find out information I thought was important to our country.

“At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the president because I had not spoken with the president about this issue at all. However, when speaking with Julian Assange, I told him that if he could provide me information and evidence about who actually gave him the DNC emails, I would then call on President Trump to pardon him,” Rohrabacher added.

“At no time did I offer a deal made by the president, nor did I say I was representing the president.”

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told reporters: “The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he’s an ex-congressman. He’s never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject.”

“It is a complete fabrication and a total lie,” Grisham said. “This is probably another never-ending hoax and total lie from the DNC.”

Trump, however, invited Rohrabacher to the White House in April 2017 after seeing the then congressman on Fox TV defending the president.

In September 2017, the White House confirmed that Rohrabacher had called the then chief of staff, John Kelly, to talk about a possible deal with Assange, but that Kelly had not passed on the message to Trump. Rohrabacher confirmed that version of events on his blog on Wednesday.

“I told him that Julian Assange would provide information about the purloined DNC emails in exchange for a pardon. No one followed up with me including Gen Kelly and that was the last discussion I had on this subject with anyone representing Trump or in his Administration,” he wrote.

“Even though I wasn’t successful in getting this message through to the President I still call on him to pardon Julian Assange, who is the true whistleblower of our time.”

“READ MORE…”

2 Comments

  1. Jeff Martin Jeff Martin February 20, 2020

    More Leftist propaganda by the Guardian.

  2. James Cheney James Cheney February 21, 2020

    This is utter Bravo Sierra. Assange has come out multiple times saying it wasn’t Russia that hacked the DNC, it was an insider.
    And we all know that insider’s name. The deceased, Seth Rich.

    C’mon Guardian!

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