Monday 16 October 2017

Julian Assange hits back at Hillary Clinton's claim he is a Russian 'tool' on Four Corners

The former Presidential nominee has hit out against a couple of high-profile Australians in an interview on Four Corners.



Julian Assange has hit back at Hillary Clinton over her claim on Four Corners that he was "a nihilistic opportunist" and "a tool of Russian intelligence".
"There's something wrong with Hillary Clinton," he wrote in the first of a series of posts on Twitter in response to a trailer for Sarah Ferguson's interview with the former US Secretary of State and Presidential nominee, which went to air ahead of Monday night's broadcast.
"It is not just her constant lying. It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement. Watch closely. Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen."
In a later post, Assange also attacked the program for failing to give him the right of reply.
"I note that [the ABC] failed to obtain my response in what seems to be a clear violation of its Code of Practice before promoting Hillary Clinton's defamatory statements. No surprise. The PM doesn't even have the courage to congratulate our Nobel Peace Prize winners."
He was referring to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's refusal to congratulate the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the group that was founded in Melbourne in 2007 and on October 6 was announced as the winner of this year's prize.In a wide-ranging interview granted in support of her new book What Happened, Mrs Clinton attacked Assange for playing a key role in undermining her bid to become president by colluding with Vladimir Putin and the Trump campaign.
She claimed Wikileaks didn't merely release sensitive information, it played an active role in ensuring that information did maximum damage.
"If all you did was publish it, that would be one thing," she told the program. "But there was a concerted operation between Wikileaks and Russia and most likely people in the United States to, as I say, weaponise that information, to make up stories – outlandish, often terrible stories that had no basis in fact."
Assange, she said, was "very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence. And he has done their bidding. You don't see damaging, negative information coming out about the Kremlin on Wikileaks.
"I think Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator."
Assange wasn't the only Australian-born media player to cop a lashing from Mrs Clinton. She also had some strong words for Rupert Murdoch, and especially his Fox News outfit.
"I think Fox News has been a pernicious influence on our elections, ever since it came into being back in the early '90s," said the former First Lady, whose husband Bill Clinton was subjected to frequent criticism and unwelcome probing by the network.
"I think that they're an advocacy outfit, they're not journalism any more … I think it has a really bad influence on our politics."
Predictably, though, her strongest criticism was reserved for Donald Trump, the man who ultimately foiled her attempt to claim her country's highest office.
Asked by Ferguson if he was "the most dangerous president you've ever had", Mrs Clinton replied in the affirmative.
"He is impulsive, he lacks self-control, he is totally consumed by how he is viewed and what people think of him. He is vindictive," she said.
"His behaviour traits and his lack of knowledge about how government works, and his … limited curiosity about how to educate himself to actually make better decisions are quite worrisome.
"I think the whole world should be concerned."

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/julian-assange-hits-back-at-hillary-clintons-claim-he-is-a-russian-tool-on-four-corners-20171016-gz2020.html
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