In addition to regaining freedom, Assange , the founder of WikiLeaks, who has been hiding in Ecuador , since June 2012, may have a small wish: to become the Australian ambassador to the United States.
On November 14, Trump Jr., the eldest son of US President Trump , released his private chat history with WikiLeaks on Twitter between the US election in September 2016 and July this year. One of the information shows that WikiLeaks hopes Trump Jr. to help and ask Trump to suggest that Australia appoint Assange as Australia's ambassador to the United States.
These communication records are information submitted by Trump Jr.'s lawyers to investigators on the " Russia Gate " investigation. The lawyers said they have submitted thousands of documents related to Trump Jr. to investigators. On Monday night, " Atlantic Monthly " took the lead in releasing some of the communications, and then Trump Jr. posted all the communications on his personal Twitter account.
On December 16, 2016, more than a month after the US election, WikiLeaks sent a private message to Trump Jr. via Twitter, talking about Assange's future.
private message read: "Obama/Hillary Clinton put pressure on Sweden , the United Kingdom and Australia (Assange's motherland) to improperly target Assange. It would be very helpful if your father could suggest that Australia appoint Assange as Australia's ambassador to the United States, and it would not be difficult for your father."
WikiLeaks even provided Trump Jr. a Trump-style line, saying that Trump could praise Assange as "a truly smart and indomitable person, the most famous person in Australia."
This private message said that Australia will definitely not appoint Assange as ambassador, but "this will send the right signal to Australia, the United Kingdom, and Sweden to abide by the law and stop distorting the law in order to please Hillary."
As early as 2010, Assange was wanted for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting two women in Sweden. Sweden has investigated Assange for seven years, but Assange has denied the allegations, saying the allegations are for political purposes.
In May this year, the Swedish prosecutor announced the withdrawal of the investigation into Assange's rape charges, but the British police still issued an arrest warrant for Assange's failure to surrender to the court as required. Media reports also pointed out that the United States may also seek to arrest Assange.
In addition to Assange's future, according to records released by Trump Jr., WikiLeaks has been trying to lobby Trump Jr. for inside information. Trump Jr. responded to some of these private messages, but most of them did not respond.
In a private message on December 10 last year, WikiLeaks proposed an "unusual idea": to let Trump Jr. reveal Trump's tax return.
Trump has refused to disclose his tax bills since the election, and a private message said that WikiLeaks has three benefits to exposing some tax bills. First, "" New York Times " has launched a large-scale attack on this; second, if the tax bill is published by "the most biased information sources" such as the New York Times and MSNBC, it will distort the facts. The third reason given by WikiLeaks is that if the agency publishes the tax bill, it will "greatly increase our impartial image, which is the real advantage." In this way, the information about Hillary released by WikiLeaks will be "more impactful", and the public will not believe that the relevant information comes from what Hillary's team calls "pro-Trump" or "pro-Russian" sources.
At the end of the private message, WikiLeaks also provided several link addresses to facilitate Trump Jr. to submit documents.
During the US election, WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary's campaign chairman Podesta. Hillary has repeatedly accused the " email gate " incident of affecting the election results, while the US intelligence agencies believe that it was Russian hackers who stole relevant information and provided it to WikiLeaks, which Assange has denied.
According to the records released this time, in addition to the lobbying of WikiLeaks, Trump Jr. also tried to obtain insider information from WikiLeaks.
On October 3 last year, Trump Jr. sent a private message to WikiLeaks, asking, "What is the 'Wednesday Decryption' I have always seen?" A day ago, Trump's informal adviser Roger Stone posted on Twitter, saying, "Wednesday @Hillary is over. #WikiLeaks."
The Atlantic Monthly found that although Trump Jr. did not reply to most of WikiLeaks' private messages in writing, his actions showed that he had referenced the information provided by WikiLeaks. For example, after the media revealed that Trump Jr. had met with Russian lawyer Veseniz Kaya, WikiLeaks hoped that Trump Jr. could provide him with an email communication with the middleman who arranged the meeting, the well-known public relations agent Rob Goldstone.
At that time, Trump did not reply to WikiLeaks' private messages, but a few hours later, he posted an email with Goldstone on his Twitter.
Although it is not clear what impact Trump’s communication with WikiLeaks will have on the “Russia Gate” investigation, the technology news website Wired quipped that judging from the content of WikiLeaks’ private messages, this non-profit that claims to be a transparent and radical is more like a “public relations representative” with a preset agenda.
After the communication records were made public, Assange also responded on Twitter, saying that he "can't confirm" the authenticity of the relevant communication, and accusing the Atlantic Monthly's report of taking it out of context.
Assange wrote: "WikiLeaks is very efficient even when persuading well-known figures to promote links related to decryption for their own benefit."
