[9/9/16] WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Thursday that a Hillary Clinton victory would promote an environment of “neo-McCarthyism” and validate efforts to crack down on free speech, both in the press and online.
“The Democrats are always speaking about how terrible McCarthyism was, and it was in many ways,” Assange said in a radio interview with Sean Hannity. “But at least the USSR actually existed then, and there actually was Russian influence on campaigns in the United States, which was serious.”
“What we’re seeing now is Hillary Clinton and her campaign trying to whip up a neo-McCarthyist hysteria where she claims that, effectively, Donald Trump is an agent of the Russians, that WikiLeaks is an agent of the Russians, and where her campaign has also implied that Jill Stein, the Greens leader, is a Russian agent, and that the Intercept, another U.S. publication, effectively [all] Russian agents,” Assange said.
“We have the ruling party … running around, calling the opposition leader, in fact multiple opposition readers, and the critical press, foreign agents,” he said. “What kind of press climate is going to exist afterwards, especially if…CONTINUE READING