WikiLeaks founder: 2016 election is like choosing between 'cholera and gonorrhea'
(Julian Assange.AP Photo / John Stillwell)
For WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is like choosing between two diseases.
"Well, you’re asking me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea?" he said in an interview with Democracy Now. "Personally, I would prefer neither."
Assange, who has previously made it clear he does not want Clinton to become president, timed the release of thousands of DNC emails to happen ahead of the Democratic National Convention in order to hurt the candidate's chances.
The emails, which showed that top Democratic officials tipped the scales against Bernie Sanders during the primaries, led to the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Assange views Clinton as a personal enemy after she pushed to indict him when WikiLeaks released diplomatic cables from her tenure as secretary of state. He believes her presidency would compromise the freedom of the press, and sees her hawkish approach to foreign policy as dangerous.
But he has also called the prospect of a Trump presidency "completely unpredictable" — and it looks like he won't be supporting either candidate.
"Look, I think—you know, we know how politics works in the United States," he said. "Whoever—whatever political party gets into government is going to merge with the bureaucracy pretty damn fast. It will be in a position where it has some levers in its hand. And so, as a result, corporate lobbyists will move in to help control those levers. So it doesn’t make much difference in the end."
Assange, who remains at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in order to avoid prosecution for sexual assault charges in Sweden, has promised that "a lot more material" related to the election will be released.
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