It’s not just “Establishment Democrats”. He literally acted as a stooge for the Russian government in publishing DNC emails but suppressing damaging information on Republicans.
This is false. A single republican’s personal laptop got hacked and a years-out-of-date outlook db was stolen.
The DNC had their email server itself hacked, which is an entirely different level of compromise.
Of course, they crafted a narrative that “republicans were hacked too!” which of course is true but highly misleading (typical of such propaganda campaigns).
This was highly effective, as it’s still popping up in discussions like this one 5+ years later.
>He literally acted as a stooge for the Russian government
Based upon the talking points at the time, establishment Democrats very much wanted this to be true. This makes sense since the Russians are a convenient scapegoat.
"On July 6, 2016, WikiLeaks again contacted Guccifer 2.0 through Twitter’s private
messaging function, writing, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic]
days prefable [sic] because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind
her after.” The Guccifer 2.0 persona responded, “ok . . . i see.” WikiLeaks also explained, “we
think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and
hillary is interesting.”".
No, it only suggests that they did not want Bernie supporters to solidify behind Clinton. The strongest suggestion is that they did not want Clinton to win.
It shows they wanted to prevent Hillary from building supporters to hurt her campaign and were explicitly strategizing how to achieve that end:
"if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters"
They explain their interest in a Bernie angle as a result of Trump, in their minds, having a low probability of winning:
"we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting"
Yes, they were. Fox News hate democrats. CNN hate Republicans. Assange hated Clinton ever since she said "wouldnt it be easier if we just drone striked him?".
He still didnt conceal any leaks in pursuit of that goal and he wasnt a russian spy. Nonetheless, both claims are frequently made in the mainstream media linked to Democrats.
He can side with whoever he likes. Doesn’t mean anyone has to like him for it.
Furthermore, as Assange isn’t an American citizen and doesn’t get to vote in the USA, none of them have no reason to put personal dislike aside and defend him or his actions.
Hell, he might have been a lot better off now if he was a USA citizen, or even if he’d been officially working for Russia.
Right now, he’s a conveniently unlicensed hot potato: held personally liable by the powers, not even really seen as a journalist even if he was one.
