Fox News’ Sean Hannity Lands Interview With WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange
Sean Hannity has landed a sit-down interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that will air Tuesday on Fox News Channel, the network announced Monday.
According to a Fox News release, the two will discuss Russian hacking, the 2016 presidential election, and both the Obama and upcoming Trump administrations. It will air at 10 p.m. on Jan. 3, with additional portions of the interview airing throughout the week.
Assange is currently living under political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought refuge from a Swedish investigation into rape allegations stemming from his 2010 visit to the country.
The interview will mark Assange’s first face-to-face cable news appearance. It is not, however, the first time he’s spoken publicly to Hannity. Most recently, in December, Assange called into Hannity’s radio show, in which the host gushed to Assange that “you’ve done us a favor” in exposing gaps in U.S. cybersecurity.
Hannity’s tone on Assange has seemingly changed over the past few years. Previously a critic of WikiLeaks, Hannity has since interviewed him multiple times via radio and phone. In a satellite interview on Fox News in September, Hannity told Assange, “Part of me, in the beginning, was conflicted about you.”
Assange and WikiLeaks were heavily involved in the political sphere ahead of Election Day, with WikiLeaks steadily publishing emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. There were also embarrassing emails from Democratic Party officials spread by WikiLeaks just before the Democratic National Convention in late July.
Much of the recent news on the election has focused on Russia’s role in the email hacks. Assange has claimed that he did not receive the hacked emails from Russia, and previously released a statement saying that WikiLeaks was not trying to influence the outcome of the election, though he’s been highly critical of Clinton.
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