A draft indictment from <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/robert-muellers-team-asks-fbi-to-probe-false-claims-against-him-174530">the Russia collusion probe</a> has revealed it has evidence of possible coordination between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and WikiLeaks, which published stolen emails damaging to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The outline court filing against Republican activist Jerome Corsi, apparently leaked by Corsi's attorneys late Tuesday, details his communications with Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone in mid-2016 on the expected releases.

The exchanges cast doubt on repeated denials by the president that his campaign coordinated with WikiLeaks over the publication of the Democratic emails -- given to the anti-secrecy website after being stolen by Russian spies, according to the US government.

Three days after WikiLeaks' first release on July 22, 2016, Stone asked Corsi to contact the site's founder Julian Assange, according to the draft indictment.

Corsi reported back a week later that he had made contact through an intermediary, and that Assange was planning two more releases that could do Clinton significant harm.

"Impact planned to be very damaging," Corsi told Stone in an email, offering advice on how the campaign should prepare itself.

Stone has already admitted to indirect contacts with Assange during 2016, as has Trump's son Donald Jr.

But the Corsi-Stone communications suggest a level of coordination and planning that had not before appeared in evidence released by the investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

- Evidence of collusion? - 
Mueller is investigating whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians who US intelligence chiefs say illegally conspired to tilt the election in Trump's favor.

The draft indictment was prepared as a plea bargain between Mueller's team and Corsi, in which he would admit to having lied to investigators.

But on Tuesday Corsi backed off the deal, and now possibly faces revised charges. He announced on Twitter he plans to file a criminal complaint against Mueller for prosecutorial misconduct.

On Wednesday Trump accused Mueller of pressuring witnesses like Corsi and Stone into lying to achieve the goals of his investigation.

The investigators are "viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts &amp; they will get relief," he said.

Corsi, a longtime conservative activist who worked for the conspiracy theory website InfoWars, was not directly attached to the Trump campaign, although he has met the president.

He was close to Stone, a veteran Republican consultant and self-avowed dirty trickster who helped Trump start his run for the White House in 2015 and continued to consult for the campaign through 2016.

The draft indictment left unanswered whether Stone -- who is also expecting to soon face charges from Mueller -- communicated the information on WikiLeaks' plans to Trump or senior campaign officials.

Mueller has also sought to find out whether Trump was informed about discussions his campaign staff had on directly obtaining dirt on Clinton that they were told the Russians held.

In any case Mueller, whose staff have not divulged anything about the progress of their work, would still have to prove that a crime had been committed.&nbsp;

Getting advance notice from WikiLeaks of its plans would not in itself be an offense, legal experts say.

But if there was broader coordination, including contact with Russians, Mueller could possibly make a case for a criminal conspiracy to interfere with the election and defraud the United States -- the charge already filed against 13 Russians accused of meddling in the election.

"Knowing about a crime before it occurs or while it is occurring is part of what a prosecutor needs to prove to hold someone responsible for a crime," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted.

"You can't join a conspiracy to commit a crime if you don't know about the crime being committed."

A draft indictment from the Russia collusion probe has revealed it has evidence of possible coordination between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and WikiLeaks, which published stolen emails damaging to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

A draft indictment from the Russia collusion probe has revealed it has evidence of possible coordination between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and WikiLeaks, which published stolen emails damaging to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. The outline court filing against Republican activist Jerome Corsi, apparently leaked by Corsi's attorneys late Tuesday, details his communications with Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone in mid-2016 on the expected releases. The exchanges cast doubt on repeated denials by the president that his campaign coordinated with WikiLeaks over the publication of the Democratic emails -- given to the anti-secrecy website after being stolen by Russian spies, according to the US government. Three days after WikiLeaks' first release on July 22, 2016, Stone asked Corsi to contact the site's founder Julian Assange, according to the draft indictment. Corsi reported back a week later that he had made contact through an intermediary, and that Assange was planning two more releases that could do Clinton significant harm. "Impact planned to be very damaging," Corsi told Stone in an email, offering advice on how the campaign should prepare itself. Stone has already admitted to indirect contacts with Assange during 2016, as has Trump's son Donald Jr. But the Corsi-Stone communications suggest a level of coordination and planning that had not before appeared in evidence released by the investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. - Evidence of collusion? - Mueller is investigating whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians who US intelligence chiefs say illegally conspired to tilt the election in Trump's favor. The draft indictment was prepared as a plea bargain between Mueller's team and Corsi, in which he would admit to having lied to investigators. But on Tuesday Corsi backed off the deal, and now possibly faces revised charges. He announced on Twitter he plans to file a criminal complaint against Mueller for prosecutorial misconduct. On Wednesday Trump accused Mueller of pressuring witnesses like Corsi and Stone into lying to achieve the goals of his investigation. The investigators are "viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts & they will get relief," he said. Corsi, a longtime conservative activist who worked for the conspiracy theory website InfoWars, was not directly attached to the Trump campaign, although he has met the president. He was close to Stone, a veteran Republican consultant and self-avowed dirty trickster who helped Trump start his run for the White House in 2015 and continued to consult for the campaign through 2016. The draft indictment left unanswered whether Stone -- who is also expecting to soon face charges from Mueller -- communicated the information on WikiLeaks' plans to Trump or senior campaign officials. Mueller has also sought to find out whether Trump was informed about discussions his campaign staff had on directly obtaining dirt on Clinton that they were told the Russians held. In any case Mueller, whose staff have not divulged anything about the progress of their work, would still have to prove that a crime had been committed. Getting advance notice from WikiLeaks of its plans would not in itself be an offense, legal experts say. But if there was broader coordination, including contact with Russians, Mueller could possibly make a case for a criminal conspiracy to interfere with the election and defraud the United States -- the charge already filed against 13 Russians accused of meddling in the election. "Knowing about a crime before it occurs or while it is occurring is part of what a prosecutor needs to prove to hold someone responsible for a crime," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted. "You can't join a conspiracy to commit a crime if you don't know about the crime being committed."

Trump campaign may also have colluded with WikiLeaks: Mueller probe 

Whistleblower website <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-assange-says-ecuador-seeking-to-end-his-asylum-174759">WikiLeaks said today that the US </a>government has charged Julian Assange&nbsp;although it did not specify the nature of the indictment.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010.&nbsp;

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London after Sweden sought his arrest for rape charges, although the rape charges were later dropped the Wikileaks founder fears he would be extradited to the US if he walks out of the embassy in London.

Wikileaks said prosecutors had revealed the existence of the sealed indictment inadvertently in a court filing in an unrelated case.

Ahead of the revelation, Ecuador had on Wednesday said it had received no extradition request for Julian Assange.

"We have told Mr Assange: 'Up to now, as far as we know, there is no extradition request from any country,'" Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told a local radio channel as speculation has grown in recent months on a possible extradition request from the US.

Assange lawyer Carlos Poveda had said last month that &nbsp;Assange was prepared to surrender to British police if he receives assurances he will not be extradited.

"What England asks of him is to appear before the British courts to answer for having broken the conditions of his provisional release," the foreign minister said.

"We do not see the British changing their point of view, they continue to insist that he appear before the courts and that they will not give him safe passage to another country," Valencia added.&nbsp;

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks said today that the US government has charged Julian Assange although it did not specify the nature of the indictment. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010.

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks said today that the US government has charged Julian Assange although it did not specify the nature of the indictment. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London after Sweden sought his arrest for rape charges, although the rape charges were later dropped the Wikileaks founder fears he would be extradited to the US if he walks out of the embassy in London. Wikileaks said prosecutors had revealed the existence of the sealed indictment inadvertently in a court filing in an unrelated case. Ahead of the revelation, Ecuador had on Wednesday said it had received no extradition request for Julian Assange. "We have told Mr Assange: 'Up to now, as far as we know, there is no extradition request from any country,'" Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told a local radio channel as speculation has grown in recent months on a possible extradition request from the US. Assange lawyer Carlos Poveda had said last month that Assange was prepared to surrender to British police if he receives assurances he will not be extradited. "What England asks of him is to appear before the British courts to answer for having broken the conditions of his provisional release," the foreign minister said. "We do not see the British changing their point of view, they continue to insist that he appear before the courts and that they will not give him safe passage to another country," Valencia added.

Julian Assange charged by US authorities: WikiLeaks

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/khashoggi-murder-outcry-threatens-us-saudi-ties-saudi-prince-says-174743">Khashoggi murder outcry threatens US-Saudi ties, Saudi prince says</a>

The outcry in the United States demonising Saudi Arabia over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul threatens US-Saudi strategic ties, the former Saudi intelligence minister warned on Wednesday.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/us-doesnt-want-to-harm-friends-allies-with-iran-sanctions-john-bolton-174742">US</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/us-doesnt-want-to-harm-friends-allies-with-iran-sanctions-john-bolton-174742"> doesn't want to harm friends, allies with Iran sanctions: John Bolton</a>

US national security adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday the Trump administration wants sanctions on Iran's crude exports to strain Tehran, but does not want to harm countries that depend on the oil.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/tdp-chief-chandrababu-naidu-to-discuss-opposition-unity-with-rahul-today-174752">TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu to discuss opposition unity with Rahul Gandhi today</a>

In an effort&nbsp;to build a strong opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu will meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-assange-says-ecuador-seeking-to-end-his-asylum-174759">WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Ecuador seeking to end his asylum</a>

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-he-does-not-feel-betrayed-by-saudis-174753">US President Donald Trump says he does not feel betrayed by Saudis</a>

Both Republican and Democratic senators asked US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (October 31) to suspend civilian nuclear energy talks with Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Khashoggi murder outcry threatens US-Saudi ties, Saudi prince says The outcry in the United States demonising Saudi Arabia over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul threatens US-Saudi strategic ties, the former Saudi intelligence minister warned on Wednesday.

Khashoggi murder outcry threatens US-Saudi ties, Saudi prince says The outcry in the United States demonising Saudi Arabia over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul threatens US-Saudi strategic ties, the former Saudi intelligence minister warned on Wednesday. US doesn't want to harm friends, allies with Iran sanctions: John Bolton US national security adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday the Trump administration wants sanctions on Iran's crude exports to strain Tehran, but does not want to harm countries that depend on the oil. TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu to discuss opposition unity with Rahul Gandhi today In an effort to build a strong opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu will meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Ecuador seeking to end his asylum WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions. US President Donald Trump says he does not feel betrayed by Saudis Both Republican and Democratic senators asked US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (October 31) to suspend civilian nuclear energy talks with Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

News brief: Big stories of the day

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions.

Assange spoke from the embassy via teleconference at a hearing in Quito of a lawsuit challenging the Ecuadorean government requiring him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat.

He took refuge in the embassy six years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden in a sexual assault case that was later dropped. He remains there to avoid being jailed by Great Britain for violating the terms of his bail, which he has said would result in his being handed over to Washington.

During the hearing, Assange said the new rules were a sign Ecuador was trying to push him out, and said Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had already decided to end his asylum but had not yet officially given the order.

"If Mr. Assange wants to stay and he follows the rules ... he can stay at the embassy as long as he wants," said Attorney General Inigo Salvador, adding that Assange's stay had cost the country $6 million.

Foreign Minister Jose Valencia declined to comment on Assange's assertion that Ecuador sought to hand him over to the United States.

Judge Karina Martinez rejected the lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry was in charge of determining his living conditions.

Assange's legal team said it immediately appealed the ruling.

Embassy staff had complained of Assange riding a skateboard in the halls, of playing soccer on the grounds and behaving aggressively with security personnel.

Ecuador's government also objected to his making online commentary about sensitive political issues in other countries, including publishing opinions about the Catalonia separatist movement in Spain.

The new rules were meant to address these concerns, Salvador said.

The United Kingdom in August had assured Assange that he would not be extradited if he left the embassy, Salvador told reporters last week.

Valencia told Reuters last week that the government was "frustrated" by the lawsuit and that it would no longer intervene with British authorities on Assange's behalf.

US federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, have maintained a long-running grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks, which according to one source includes a probe into leaks of Central Intelligence Agency documents to the website.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions. Assange spoke from the embassy via teleconference at a hearing in Quito of a lawsuit challenging the Ecuadorean government requiring him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat. He took refuge in the embassy six years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden in a sexual assault case that was later dropped. He remains there to avoid being jailed by Great Britain for violating the terms of his bail, which he has said would result in his being handed over to Washington. During the hearing, Assange said the new rules were a sign Ecuador was trying to push him out, and said Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had already decided to end his asylum but had not yet officially given the order. "If Mr. Assange wants to stay and he follows the rules ... he can stay at the embassy as long as he wants," said Attorney General Inigo Salvador, adding that Assange's stay had cost the country $6 million. Foreign Minister Jose Valencia declined to comment on Assange's assertion that Ecuador sought to hand him over to the United States. Judge Karina Martinez rejected the lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry was in charge of determining his living conditions. Assange's legal team said it immediately appealed the ruling. Embassy staff had complained of Assange riding a skateboard in the halls, of playing soccer on the grounds and behaving aggressively with security personnel. Ecuador's government also objected to his making online commentary about sensitive political issues in other countries, including publishing opinions about the Catalonia separatist movement in Spain. The new rules were meant to address these concerns, Salvador said. The United Kingdom in August had assured Assange that he would not be extradited if he left the embassy, Salvador told reporters last week. Valencia told Reuters last week that the government was "frustrated" by the lawsuit and that it would no longer intervene with British authorities on Assange's behalf. US federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, have maintained a long-running grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks, which according to one source includes a probe into leaks of Central Intelligence Agency documents to the website.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Ecuador seeking to end his asylum

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sued the Ecuador government Friday for violating his "fundamental rights" and limiting his access to the outside world while in asylum at its London embassy.

The whistleblowing website said its general counsel arrived in Ecuador on Thursday to launch a legal case against the government for "violating (Assange's) fundamental rights and freedom".

"The move comes almost seven months after Ecuador threatened to remove his protection and summarily cut off his access to the outside world, including by refusing to allow journalists and human rights organisations to see him," WikiLeaks said.

It added that the embassy was requiring Assange's visitors -- including journalists and lawyers -- to disclose "private or political details such as their social media usernames".

The Ecuador government issued no immediate statement in response.

Assange's legal action comes with speculation mounting that Ecuador was preparing to end its standoff with the British government by terminating his six-year asylum.

Quito confirmed blocking Assange's internet and mobile phone access in March after accusing him of breaking "a written committment" not to interfere in Ecuador's foreign policies.

Assange found refuge in the embassy in 2012 after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault, and he feared being transferred to the US.

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in March 2017 that arresting Assange for leaking sensitive US government files through his websites was a "priority".

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sued the Ecuador government Friday for violating his "fundamental rights" and limiting his access to the outside world while in asylum at its London embassy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sued the Ecuador government Friday for violating his "fundamental rights" and limiting his access to the outside world while in asylum at its London embassy. The whistleblowing website said its general counsel arrived in Ecuador on Thursday to launch a legal case against the government for "violating (Assange's) fundamental rights and freedom". "The move comes almost seven months after Ecuador threatened to remove his protection and summarily cut off his access to the outside world, including by refusing to allow journalists and human rights organisations to see him," WikiLeaks said. It added that the embassy was requiring Assange's visitors -- including journalists and lawyers -- to disclose "private or political details such as their social media usernames". The Ecuador government issued no immediate statement in response. Assange's legal action comes with speculation mounting that Ecuador was preparing to end its standoff with the British government by terminating his six-year asylum. Quito confirmed blocking Assange's internet and mobile phone access in March after accusing him of breaking "a written committment" not to interfere in Ecuador's foreign policies. Assange found refuge in the embassy in 2012 after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault, and he feared being transferred to the US. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in March 2017 that arresting Assange for leaking sensitive US government files through his websites was a "priority".

Julian Assange sues Ecuador over 'fundamental rights'

The Ecuador government has decided to "partially restore" internet access to &nbsp;WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been living in the Ecuador embassy at London for the past six years.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/ecuador-attempted-give-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-diplomat-post-russia-report-167140">Also Read: Ecuador attempted to give Wikileaks founder Julian Assange diplomat post in Russia</a>

WikiLeaks said although communication is partly restored but the&nbsp;Ecuadorian government still limits Assange's his freedom of expression.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Julian Assange’s communications partly restored by Ecuadorian government -- but still limits his freedom of expression <a href="https://t.co/0B0utKw3KT">https://t.co/0B0utKw3KT</a> <a href="https://t.co/id10ExRJVn">pic.twitter.com/id10ExRJVn</a>
— Courage Foundation (@couragefound) <a href="https://twitter.com/couragefound/status/1051568221038481410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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“Ecuador has told WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange that it will remove the isolation regime imposed on him following meetings between two senior UN officials and Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno on Friday,” WikiLeaks said in a statement.

Assange has been huddled in the Ecuador embassy since 2012 after the Swedish government moved rape molestation case against him, although the case was dropped later but Assange fears he could be extradited by UK authorities and deported to the US where he faces&nbsp;criminal investigation for leaking US military and government files online.

Reacting to the development, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “It is positive that through UN intervention Ecuador has partly ended the isolation of Assange although it is of grave concern that his freedom to express his opinions is still limited, adding, "the UN has already declared Mr Assange a victim of arbitrary detention. This unacceptable situation must end."

The Ecuador government has decided to "partially restore" internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been living in the Ecuador embassy at London for the past six years.

The Ecuador government has decided to "partially restore" internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been living in the Ecuador embassy at London for the past six years. Also Read: Ecuador attempted to give Wikileaks founder Julian Assange diplomat post in Russia WikiLeaks said although communication is partly restored but the Ecuadorian government still limits Assange's his freedom of expression. Julian Assange’s communications partly restored by Ecuadorian government -- but still limits his freedom of expression https://t.co/0B0utKw3KT pic.twitter.com/id10ExRJVn — Courage Foundation (@couragefound) October 14, 2018 × “Ecuador has told WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange that it will remove the isolation regime imposed on him following meetings between two senior UN officials and Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno on Friday,” WikiLeaks said in a statement. Assange has been huddled in the Ecuador embassy since 2012 after the Swedish government moved rape molestation case against him, although the case was dropped later but Assange fears he could be extradited by UK authorities and deported to the US where he faces criminal investigation for leaking US military and government files online. Reacting to the development, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “It is positive that through UN intervention Ecuador has partly ended the isolation of Assange although it is of grave concern that his freedom to express his opinions is still limited, adding, "the UN has already declared Mr Assange a victim of arbitrary detention. This unacceptable situation must end."

Ecuador 'partly restores' internet access for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

The Ecuador embassy in London has reportedly cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's communication line.

"The government of Ecuador has suspended the systems that allow Julian Assange to communicate to the outside of the Ecuador embassy in London… The measure was adopted due to Assange not complying with a written promise which he made with the government in late 2017, by which he was obliged not to send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states," the government said in a statement.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 for fear of being extradited to Sweden on sexual abuse allegations even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's (WGAD) had declared that the charges were arbitrary but the UK government refused to recognise the decision, keeping Assange on a virtual house arrest.

A Swedish court had dropped the sexual assault case against Assange last year.

Assange's supporters immediately took to social media to protest against the move by the Ecuadorian embassy asking people to gather outside.

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URGENT ASSANGE ALERT 
We have confirmed reports that Julian has had his internet cut off, visitors refused & phones jammed. 
 
If you are in LONDON please gather immediately outside the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ecuador?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Ecuador</a> Embassy 
3 Hans Cres 
(Catch train to Knightsbridge Railway Station on Piccadilly Line.)
— Assange Freedom Now (@AssangeFreedom5) <a href="https://twitter.com/AssangeFreedom5/status/978995909093543937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Assange's supporters immediately took to social media to protest against the move by the Ecuadorian embassy asking people to gather outside.

The Ecuador embassy in London has reportedly cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's communication line. "The government of Ecuador has suspended the systems that allow Julian Assange to communicate to the outside of the Ecuador embassy in London… The measure was adopted due to Assange not complying with a written promise which he made with the government in late 2017, by which he was obliged not to send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states," the government said in a statement. Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 for fear of being extradited to Sweden on sexual abuse allegations even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's (WGAD) had declared that the charges were arbitrary but the UK government refused to recognise the decision, keeping Assange on a virtual house arrest. A Swedish court had dropped the sexual assault case against Assange last year. Assange's supporters immediately took to social media to protest against the move by the Ecuadorian embassy asking people to gather outside. URGENT ASSANGE ALERT We have confirmed reports that Julian has had his internet cut off, visitors refused & phones jammed. If you are in LONDON please gather immediately outside the #Ecuador Embassy 3 Hans Cres (Catch train to Knightsbridge Railway Station on Piccadilly Line.) — Assange Freedom Now (@AssangeFreedom5) March 28, 2018 ×

Ecuador embassy cuts Julian Assange's communication line

Ecuador blamed Britain on Friday for upending its efforts to mediate a solution for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition.

Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador had hoped to forge an agreement with Britain on Australian-born Assange, who entered the embassy to avoid being sent to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, which he has denied.&nbsp;

&quot;This has not prospered because to mediate, two parties are needed. Ecuador is willing but the other party is not,&quot; she told reporters.

Last week, a British judge refused to halt legal proceedings against Assange, 46. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for Assange`s arrest over his breach of bail terms.

Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador shared Assange`s fears that he could be extradited to the United States if he left the embassy, given that he has published US&nbsp;diplomatic and military secrets on

WikiLeaks, an organization that makes public secret information or news leaks provided by anonymous sources.

Ecuador will continue to provide shelter to Assange while he remains under threat and keep searching for ways to resolve the debacle, she said.

There is no public record or evidence demonstrating that any US&nbsp;criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US&nbsp;prosecutors could have a sealed, and therefore secret, indictment against him.

A US&nbsp;government official told Reuters last week that federal prosecutors were still pursuing a criminal investigation against WikiLeaks.

Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador had hoped to forge an agreement with Britain on Australian-born Assange

Ecuador blamed Britain on Friday for upending its efforts to mediate a solution for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition. Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador had hoped to forge an agreement with Britain on Australian-born Assange, who entered the embassy to avoid being sent to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, which he has denied. "This has not prospered because to mediate, two parties are needed. Ecuador is willing but the other party is not," she told reporters. Last week, a British judge refused to halt legal proceedings against Assange, 46. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for Assange`s arrest over his breach of bail terms. Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador shared Assange`s fears that he could be extradited to the United States if he left the embassy, given that he has published US diplomatic and military secrets on WikiLeaks, an organization that makes public secret information or news leaks provided by anonymous sources. Ecuador will continue to provide shelter to Assange while he remains under threat and keep searching for ways to resolve the debacle, she said. There is no public record or evidence demonstrating that any US criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US prosecutors could have a sealed, and therefore secret, indictment against him. A US government official told Reuters last week that federal prosecutors were still pursuing a criminal investigation against WikiLeaks.

Ecuador says mediation with Britain over Assange has failed

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost a legal bid on Tuesday to persuade British authorities to drop further action against him for breaching his bail conditions when he walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012.

The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years unless he decides to face the prospect of arrest by British police.

Assange, 46, entered Ecuador&#39;s embassy in June 2012 after skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for his arrest over the breach of bail terms.

&quot;I find arrest is a proportionate response even though Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years,&quot; judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales, said in her ruling at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Assange says he fears that if he hands himself in he could be extradited to the United States to be prosecuted for publishing US&nbsp;diplomatic and military secrets on WikiLeaks.

There is no public record or evidence demonstrating any US&nbsp;criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US&nbsp;prosecutors could have a sealed, therefore secret, indictment against him.

His lawyers had argued in a court hearing last week that it was no longer in the interests of justice for British authorities to seek to arrest and prosecute him for skipping bail, but the judge rejected their points.

&quot;Defendants on bail up and down the country, and requested persons facing extradition, come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too,&quot; she said.

&quot;The impression I have ... is that he is a man who wants to impose his terms on the course of justice.&quot;

Assange, who is very active on Twitter, appeared to be closely following the hearing from within the embassy. He sent a number of tweets while the judge was reading out her ruling, one of them commenting that it did not seem to be going well for him and others linking to articles favourable to him.

In one passage from her ruling, the judge said she did not accept the argument of Assange&#39;s lawyers that he had no access to sunlight. She said she had seen photographs of him on the embassy balcony.

&quot;Pulling security to get me safely on the balcony six times in six years for a few minutes turns into this,&quot; Assange tweeted in response.

Assange&#39;s supporters regard him as a champion of freedom of speech who has exposed inconvenient truths at great personal cost. His critics say that some of the WikiLeaks material posted online endangered lives in several countries, and that he has been too eager to side with autocratic regimes in his determination to criticise the United States.

The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost a legal bid on Tuesday to persuade British authorities to drop further action against him for breaching his bail conditions when he walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012. The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years unless he decides to face the prospect of arrest by British police. Assange, 46, entered Ecuador's embassy in June 2012 after skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for his arrest over the breach of bail terms. "I find arrest is a proportionate response even though Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years," judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales, said in her ruling at Westminster Magistrates Court. Assange says he fears that if he hands himself in he could be extradited to the United States to be prosecuted for publishing US diplomatic and military secrets on WikiLeaks. There is no public record or evidence demonstrating any US criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US prosecutors could have a sealed, therefore secret, indictment against him. His lawyers had argued in a court hearing last week that it was no longer in the interests of justice for British authorities to seek to arrest and prosecute him for skipping bail, but the judge rejected their points. "Defendants on bail up and down the country, and requested persons facing extradition, come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too," she said. "The impression I have ... is that he is a man who wants to impose his terms on the course of justice." Assange, who is very active on Twitter, appeared to be closely following the hearing from within the embassy. He sent a number of tweets while the judge was reading out her ruling, one of them commenting that it did not seem to be going well for him and others linking to articles favourable to him. In one passage from her ruling, the judge said she did not accept the argument of Assange's lawyers that he had no access to sunlight. She said she had seen photographs of him on the embassy balcony. "Pulling security to get me safely on the balcony six times in six years for a few minutes turns into this," Assange tweeted in response. Assange's supporters regard him as a champion of freedom of speech who has exposed inconvenient truths at great personal cost. His critics say that some of the WikiLeaks material posted online endangered lives in several countries, and that he has been too eager to side with autocratic regimes in his determination to criticise the United States.

WikiLeaks founder Assange loses bid to halt UK legal action against him

A British judge on Tuesday said she would issue a further ruling on February 13 on whether an arrest warrant for <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-loses-bid-to-have-uk-arrest-warrant-dropped-32027" target="_blank">Wikileaks founder Julian Assange</a> for breaching his bail conditions should be kept in place.

Judge Emma Arbuthnot earlier ruled out a bid by Assange to cancel the warrant outright but his lawyers have made a new application asking her to consider whether it is in the &quot;public interest&quot; to maintain it.

Judge Emma Arbuthnot earlier ruled out a bid by Assange to cancel the warrant outright

A British judge on Tuesday said she would issue a further ruling on February 13 on whether an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for breaching his bail conditions should be kept in place. Judge Emma Arbuthnot earlier ruled out a bid by Assange to cancel the warrant outright but his lawyers have made a new application asking her to consider whether it is in the "public interest" to maintain it.

UK court to issue new ruling on Assange on February 13

A British court on Tuesday rejected a legal attempt by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to have a warrant for his arrest quashed.

Assange, 46, has been holed up inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than five years because he fears extradition to the United States.

If he were to leave, he would face arrest by British police for skipping bail in June 2012 by seeking refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied.

The Swedish case has since been dropped but in the eyes of the British authorities, Assange remains in breach of his bail conditions.

Assange has said he feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks&#39; publication of a large trove of classified military and diplomatic documents - one of the largest information leaks in US&nbsp;history.

His lawyer told a hearing at London&#39;s Westminster Magistrates&#39; Court last week that the UK arrest warrant issued for breaching bail conditions should be dropped because Swedish prosecutors had dropped their investigation and withdrawn their bid to have him extradited.

However, the court announced on Tuesday his application had been rejected.

&quot;I am not persuaded that the warrant should be withdrawn,&quot; said judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales.

After the decision, Assange&rsquo;s lawyer Mark Summers asked her to consider whether it would be in the public interest to continue pursuing his client for breach of bail conditions.

Arbuthnot said normally such issues would only be considered if somebody were brought to court to explain their failure to surrender to bail.

Summers replied: &ldquo;There are exceptional circumstances.&rdquo;

Assange, 46, has been holed up inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than five years because he fears extradition to the United States

A British court on Tuesday rejected a legal attempt by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to have a warrant for his arrest quashed. Assange, 46, has been holed up inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than five years because he fears extradition to the United States. If he were to leave, he would face arrest by British police for skipping bail in June 2012 by seeking refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied. The Swedish case has since been dropped but in the eyes of the British authorities, Assange remains in breach of his bail conditions. Assange has said he feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks' publication of a large trove of classified military and diplomatic documents - one of the largest information leaks in US history. His lawyer told a hearing at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court last week that the UK arrest warrant issued for breaching bail conditions should be dropped because Swedish prosecutors had dropped their investigation and withdrawn their bid to have him extradited. However, the court announced on Tuesday his application had been rejected. "I am not persuaded that the warrant should be withdrawn," said judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales. After the decision, Assange’s lawyer Mark Summers asked her to consider whether it would be in the public interest to continue pursuing his client for breach of bail conditions. Arbuthnot said normally such issues would only be considered if somebody were brought to court to explain their failure to surrender to bail. Summers replied: “There are exceptional circumstances.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange loses bid to have UK arrest warrant dropped

Wikileaks founder <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/swedish-prosecutors-drop-rape-probe-against-assange-uk-police-to-execute-arrest-warrant-15787">Julian Assange has been denied </a>diplomatic status by the UK which was requested by the Ecuador&nbsp;government, reports said, a move would have helped&nbsp;Assange&nbsp;to leave Britain&nbsp;without being arrested.

Assange has been <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/assange-accuses-cia-of-devastating-incompetence-over-leaks-says-has-more-information-on-hacking-operation-13221">holed up in the Ecuador embassy in</a> London since 2012 over rape allegations in Sweden even though the country withdrew the charge two years ago.

Reports had emerged in the past few days with Ecuador foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa reportedly told the media that the current situation was &ldquo;not sustainable&rdquo; and indicated a third-party solution to the ongoing diplomatic crisis with the UK.

Espinosa had said &quot;no solution&quot; could be achieved without &quot;international cooperation&quot; and cooperation of the UK.

The Wikileaks founder could be arrested by UK authorities for violating bail conditions. Assange feels once he is arrested he might be extradited to the US where he facing charges for leaking classified US documents.

Assange has been living inside the Ecuador embassy claiming &quot;political asylum&quot; even as UK police officials continue to monitor his movements from outside, posted just outside the embassy.

A United Nations panel had earlier said that Assange was being &quot;arbitrarily detained&quot; but it was rejected by UK authorities.

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London since 2012 over rape allegations in Sweden

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been denied diplomatic status by the UK which was requested by the Ecuador government, reports said, a move would have helped Assange to leave Britain without being arrested. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London since 2012 over rape allegations in Sweden even though the country withdrew the charge two years ago. Reports had emerged in the past few days with Ecuador foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa reportedly told the media that the current situation was “not sustainable” and indicated a third-party solution to the ongoing diplomatic crisis with the UK. Espinosa had said "no solution" could be achieved without "international cooperation" and cooperation of the UK. The Wikileaks founder could be arrested by UK authorities for violating bail conditions. Assange feels once he is arrested he might be extradited to the US where he facing charges for leaking classified US documents. Assange has been living inside the Ecuador embassy claiming "political asylum" even as UK police officials continue to monitor his movements from outside, posted just outside the embassy. A United Nations panel had earlier said that Assange was being "arbitrarily detained" but it was rejected by UK authorities.

UK denies diplomatic status to Assange: Report

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday shared screenshots of conversations he had with WikiLeaks during the 2016 US election campaign.&nbsp;

WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange has over the years released several thousand &quot;classified&quot; US government files revealing secret&nbsp;information.&nbsp;

Trump Jr. shared the messages via his Twitter hours after The Atlantic published a story disclosing the correspondence.

He shared the trail of messages&nbsp;with WikiLeaks&nbsp;that &quot;one of the congressional committees&quot; chose to &quot;selectively leak&quot;&nbsp;between him&nbsp;and WikiLeaks, Trump Jr. wrote.

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Here is the entire chain of messages with <a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wikileaks</a> (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3 <a href="https://t.co/SiwTqWtykA">pic.twitter.com/SiwTqWtykA</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/930228239494209536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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2/3 <a href="https://t.co/b1B9PBGl5t">pic.twitter.com/b1B9PBGl5t</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/930228342774816769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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3/3 <a href="https://t.co/5FdeNrbg02">pic.twitter.com/5FdeNrbg02</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/930228511343865858?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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WikiLeaks is shown informing Trump Jr of a new anti-Trump website, urging his father to tweet about WikiLeaks&#39;s Clinton files and advising that, if he loses the election, Trump should challenge the result.

The group also asks Trump Jr to provide his father&#39;s tax returns because &quot;it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality&quot; while boosting the impact of its Clinton materials.

&quot;WikiLeaks made a sequence of increasingly daring requests, asking for Trump&rsquo;s tax returns, suggesting the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and seeking that the president-elect tells Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States,&quot; The Atlantic reported.&nbsp;

&quot;Off the record, I don&rsquo;t know who that is, but I&rsquo;ll ask around,&quot; Trump Jr. responded on September 21, 2016, reported The Atlantic.&nbsp;

Trump Jr only replied to three early messages, thanking WikiLeaks for the information on the new website, making a slighting comment about Clinton, and, on October 3 last year, just before WikiLeaks published a trove of files on Clinton, asking &quot;What&#39;s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?&quot;

On October 3, 2016, WikiLeaks wrote to Trump Jr. asking them to promote a story about Hillary Clinton saying, &quot;Can&#39;t we just drone (Julian Assange)?&quot;&nbsp;

&quot;Already did that earlier today,&quot; Trump Jr. responded. &quot;It&rsquo;s amazing what she can get away with.&quot;

In April, WikiLeaks suggested Trump Jr. hand over emails in regards to a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer that had become an important aspect of the federal investigation into a probable conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Trump Jr. did not reply to the message, but moments later gave information about the emails himself through his Twitter account.

In his own tweets, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed that these messages were done as a promotional activity.&nbsp;

&quot;WikiLeaks can be very effective at convincing even high-profile people that it is their interest to promote links to its publications,&quot; he said.

(with input from agencies) 
&nbsp;

Trump Jr. shared the messages via his Twitter feed hours after The Atlantic published a story disclosing the actuality of the correspondence.

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday shared screenshots of conversations he had with WikiLeaks during the 2016 US election campaign. WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange has over the years released several thousand "classified" US government files revealing secret information. Trump Jr. shared the messages via his Twitter hours after The Atlantic published a story disclosing the correspondence. He shared the trail of messages with WikiLeaks that "one of the congressional committees" chose to "selectively leak" between him and WikiLeaks, Trump Jr. wrote. Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/SiwTqWtykA — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017 × 2/3 pic.twitter.com/b1B9PBGl5t — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017 × 3/3 pic.twitter.com/5FdeNrbg02 — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017 × WikiLeaks is shown informing Trump Jr of a new anti-Trump website, urging his father to tweet about WikiLeaks's Clinton files and advising that, if he loses the election, Trump should challenge the result. The group also asks Trump Jr to provide his father's tax returns because "it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality" while boosting the impact of its Clinton materials. "WikiLeaks made a sequence of increasingly daring requests, asking for Trump’s tax returns, suggesting the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and seeking that the president-elect tells Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States," The Atlantic reported. "Off the record, I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around," Trump Jr. responded on September 21, 2016, reported The Atlantic. Trump Jr only replied to three early messages, thanking WikiLeaks for the information on the new website, making a slighting comment about Clinton, and, on October 3 last year, just before WikiLeaks published a trove of files on Clinton, asking "What's behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?" On October 3, 2016, WikiLeaks wrote to Trump Jr. asking them to promote a story about Hillary Clinton saying, "Can't we just drone (Julian Assange)?" "Already did that earlier today," Trump Jr. responded. "It’s amazing what she can get away with." In April, WikiLeaks suggested Trump Jr. hand over emails in regards to a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer that had become an important aspect of the federal investigation into a probable conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump Jr. did not reply to the message, but moments later gave information about the emails himself through his Twitter account. In his own tweets, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed that these messages were done as a promotional activity. "WikiLeaks can be very effective at convincing even high-profile people that it is their interest to promote links to its publications," he said. (with input from agencies)

Trump Jr. reveals messages with WikiLeaks during US election campaign

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/hillary-clintons-childhood-and-how-it-shaped-her-politics-8189" target="_blank">Hillary Clinton&nbsp;</a>Monday&nbsp;accused<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-releases-20000-emails-of-democratic-party-officials-working-against-bernie-sanders-3076" target="_blank"> WikiLeaks</a> of working with Russia to deflect attention away from an infamous tape of <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-faces-uphill-battle-in-second-us-presidential-debate-with-clinton-7288" target="_blank">Donald Trump </a>bragging about groping women in the run-up to the US presidential election.

The former secretary of state&#39;s devastating election loss to Trump remains raw and she again lashed out at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his alleged role in damaging her candidacy.

&quot;Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator,&quot; she said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

&quot;WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully-owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence.&quot;

The US intelligence community concluded Putin ordered an influence campaign to discredit Clinton and had a &quot;clear preference&quot; for Trump in last year&#39;s poll.

Clinton used the bombshell Trump tape as an example of how WikiLeaks allegedly tried to deflect attention away from a bad news story, resurrecting the incident in the wake of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein&#39;s fall from grace over his treatment of women.

In the 2005 videotape, which surfaced in October last year, Trump brags about being able to get away with<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/sexual-harassment-charges-against-donald-trump-what-south-asian-women-think-8245" target="_blank"> groping women</a>.

&quot;When you&#39;re a star, they let you do it,&quot; he said. &quot;Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,&quot; Trump added.

Trump said the comments were &quot;locker-room banter&quot;. Several women subsequently accused him of sexual misconduct, which he denounced as lies.

Within hours of the tape emerging, WikiLeaks published more than 2,000 hacked emails from the personal account of Clinton&#39;s campaign chair John Podesta, which she said blunted its impact.

&quot;WikiLeaks, which in the world in which we find ourselves promised hidden information, promised some kind of secret that might be of influence, was a very clever, diabolical response to the Hollywood Access tape,&quot; she said, referring to the Trump recording.&nbsp;

&quot;And I&#39;ve no doubt in my mind that there was some communication if not coordination to drop those the first time in response to the Hollywood Access tape.&quot;

Clinton claimed WikiLeaks&#39; actions were motivated by Assange&#39;s personal dislike of her.

&quot;I had a lot of history with him because I was secretary of state when WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our State Department and our Defence Department,&quot; she said.

&quot;If he&#39;s such a martyr of free speech, why doesn&#39;t WikilLaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia? You don&#39;t see damaging, negative information coming out about the Kremlin on Wikileaks,&quot; Clinton added.

Australian Assange, who has spent five years inside the Ecuador embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, has denied Russia was the source behind the leaked documents.

'WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully-owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence,' said Clinton

Hillary Clinton Monday accused WikiLeaks of working with Russia to deflect attention away from an infamous tape of Donald Trump bragging about groping women in the run-up to the US presidential election. The former secretary of state's devastating election loss to Trump remains raw and she again lashed out at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his alleged role in damaging her candidacy. "Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator," she said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin. "WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully-owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence." The US intelligence community concluded Putin ordered an influence campaign to discredit Clinton and had a "clear preference" for Trump in last year's poll. Clinton used the bombshell Trump tape as an example of how WikiLeaks allegedly tried to deflect attention away from a bad news story, resurrecting the incident in the wake of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein's fall from grace over his treatment of women. In the 2005 videotape, which surfaced in October last year, Trump brags about being able to get away with groping women. "When you're a star, they let you do it," he said. "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything," Trump added. Trump said the comments were "locker-room banter". Several women subsequently accused him of sexual misconduct, which he denounced as lies. Within hours of the tape emerging, WikiLeaks published more than 2,000 hacked emails from the personal account of Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta, which she said blunted its impact. "WikiLeaks, which in the world in which we find ourselves promised hidden information, promised some kind of secret that might be of influence, was a very clever, diabolical response to the Hollywood Access tape," she said, referring to the Trump recording. "And I've no doubt in my mind that there was some communication if not coordination to drop those the first time in response to the Hollywood Access tape." Clinton claimed WikiLeaks' actions were motivated by Assange's personal dislike of her. "I had a lot of history with him because I was secretary of state when WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our State Department and our Defence Department," she said. "If he's such a martyr of free speech, why doesn't WikilLaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia? You don't see damaging, negative information coming out about the Kremlin on Wikileaks," Clinton added. Australian Assange, who has spent five years inside the Ecuador embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, has denied Russia was the source behind the leaked documents.

Clinton says WikiLeaks worked with Russia to deflect attention from infamous Trump tape

Swedish prosecutors Friday dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012.

&quot;Director of Public Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape by Julian Assange,&quot; the prosecutor&#39;s office said in a statement.&nbsp;

Friday was the deadline for the public prosecutor&#39;s office to either renew or lift Assange&#39;s arrest warrant before a Stockholm court.

British police told Reuters&nbsp;separately that it was still under obligation to arrest Assange were he to leave the embassy.

&quot;Westminster Magistrates&#39; Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012,&quot; British police told Reuters.

&quot;The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy,&quot; the police added.

A British government source would not confirm or deny if the United States had made a request to extradite Assange until an arrest had been made.

Shortly after the decision, Assange posted a picture of himself smiling broadly, without comment.

Ny and Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren are to brief reporters on the decision at 12:00pm (1000 GMT) on Friday.

The 45-year-old Australian has always denied the 2010 allegations, which he feared would see him extradited to the United States and tried over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.

He has been living at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 and risks being arrested by British police if he steps out of the building.

British police have said they will arrest Assange as soon as he walks out of the embassy because he has broken his conditions for bail -- a relatively minor offence under British law -- by failing to surrender on June 29, 2012 for extradition to Sweden.

Assange&#39;s Swedish lawyer last month filed a new motion demanding that the arrest warrant be lifted after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April that arresting Assange would be &quot;a priority&quot;.

&quot;This implies that we can now demonstrate that the US has a will to take action... this is why we ask for the arrest warrant to be cancelled so that Julian Assange can fly to Ecuador and enjoy his political asylum,&quot; lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP at the time.

The accusation against Assange dated from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint.&nbsp;

She accused him of having sex with her as she slept without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex.&nbsp;

Endless delays&nbsp;

&quot;I am entirely innocent,&quot; Assange wrote in a 19-page testimony released in December 2016.

He argues that the sex was consensual and has denounced the accusations as &quot;politically motived&quot;.&nbsp;

The investigation had suffered from multiple procedural complications since it began.

The statute of limitations on the rape allegation expires in August 2020.

In a letter sent to the Swedish government on May 8, Ecuador condemned &quot;the obvious lack of progress&quot; in the investigation despite Assange&#39;s questioning in the presence of the Swedish prosecutor at the embassy in November 2016.

&quot;It is extremely worrying that six months after the hearing at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, the Swedish prosecutor&#39;s office has not yet decided on the judicial situation of Julian Assange,&quot; the Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry said in the letter seen by AFP.

Swedish judges have refused to take into account the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 said Assange was effectively &quot;arbitrarily detained&quot; by Sweden and Britain and called for the arrest warrant to be annulled.

&#39;End of nightmare&#39;

A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange welcomed the decision of Swedish prosecutors Friday to drop a seven-year rape investigation against him, saying it was the &quot;end of his nightmare&quot;.

&quot;We have been waiting a long time for this decision,&quot; Christophe Marchand, a member of Assange&#39;s Brussels-based legal team, told AFP.

&quot;Julian Assange has been a victim of a huge abuse of procedure. We are very pleased and very moved, as this marks the end of his nightmare.&quot;

(AFP)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was accused of rape in 2010

Swedish prosecutors Friday dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012. "Director of Public Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape by Julian Assange," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. Friday was the deadline for the public prosecutor's office to either renew or lift Assange's arrest warrant before a Stockholm court. British police told Reuters separately that it was still under obligation to arrest Assange were he to leave the embassy. "Westminster Magistrates' Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012," British police told Reuters. "The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy," the police added. A British government source would not confirm or deny if the United States had made a request to extradite Assange until an arrest had been made. Shortly after the decision, Assange posted a picture of himself smiling broadly, without comment. Ny and Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren are to brief reporters on the decision at 12:00pm (1000 GMT) on Friday. The 45-year-old Australian has always denied the 2010 allegations, which he feared would see him extradited to the United States and tried over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents. He has been living at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 and risks being arrested by British police if he steps out of the building. British police have said they will arrest Assange as soon as he walks out of the embassy because he has broken his conditions for bail -- a relatively minor offence under British law -- by failing to surrender on June 29, 2012 for extradition to Sweden. Assange's Swedish lawyer last month filed a new motion demanding that the arrest warrant be lifted after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April that arresting Assange would be "a priority". "This implies that we can now demonstrate that the US has a will to take action... this is why we ask for the arrest warrant to be cancelled so that Julian Assange can fly to Ecuador and enjoy his political asylum," lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP at the time. The accusation against Assange dated from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint. She accused him of having sex with her as she slept without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex. Endless delays "I am entirely innocent," Assange wrote in a 19-page testimony released in December 2016. He argues that the sex was consensual and has denounced the accusations as "politically motived". The investigation had suffered from multiple procedural complications since it began. The statute of limitations on the rape allegation expires in August 2020. In a letter sent to the Swedish government on May 8, Ecuador condemned "the obvious lack of progress" in the investigation despite Assange's questioning in the presence of the Swedish prosecutor at the embassy in November 2016. "It is extremely worrying that six months after the hearing at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, the Swedish prosecutor's office has not yet decided on the judicial situation of Julian Assange," the Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry said in the letter seen by AFP. Swedish judges have refused to take into account the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 said Assange was effectively "arbitrarily detained" by Sweden and Britain and called for the arrest warrant to be annulled. 'End of nightmare' A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange welcomed the decision of Swedish prosecutors Friday to drop a seven-year rape investigation against him, saying it was the "end of his nightmare". "We have been waiting a long time for this decision," Christophe Marchand, a member of Assange's Brussels-based legal team, told AFP. "Julian Assange has been a victim of a huge abuse of procedure. We are very pleased and very moved, as this marks the end of his nightmare." (AFP)

Swedish prosecutors drop rape probe against Assange, UK police to execute arrest warrant

US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been released from prison after serving a seven-year&nbsp;prison term.

Former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, a transgender was jailed for one of the largest leaks of classified documents in US history walked free from a&nbsp;military prison today.

Manning &quot;has been released from the United States Disciplinary Barracks&quot; at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a brief statement.&nbsp;

&quot;After another anxious four months of waiting, the day has finally arrived. I am looking forward to so much!&quot; Manning, whose sentence was commuted by former president Barack Obama,&nbsp;said in a statement via her legal team.

&quot;Whatever is ahead of me, is far more important than the past,&quot; said the 29-year-old, who served seven of a 35-year sentence over one of the largest leaks of classified documents in US history.

&quot;I&#39;m figuring things out right now -- which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me.&quot;

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First steps of freedom!! ??<a href="https://t.co/kPPWV5epwa">https://t.co/kPPWV5epwa</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChelseaIsFree?src=hash">#ChelseaIsFree</a> <a href="https://t.co/0R5pXqA1VN">pic.twitter.com/0R5pXqA1VN</a>
&mdash; Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) <a href="https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/864840675220754436">May 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
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In July 2010, Manning, then a male soldier known as Bradley, was arrested over the release of a huge trove of more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents via WikiLeaks.

Without Obama&#39;s parting gift, Manning, who served as an intelligence official in Iraq, would have remained behind bars until 2045, after serving a 35-year sentence.

Supporters of Manning -- who attempted suicide twice last year alone -- said they feared she would not have been able to survive the long sentence. Now, she can complete her transition as a free, openly transgender woman.

&quot;Two more days until the freedom of civilian life,&quot; Manning tweeted Monday. &quot;Now hunting for private #healthcare like millions of Americans.&quot;

Manning, now 29, also went on a hunger strike during her detention to denounce the disciplinary measures to which she was subjected -- including stints in solitary confinement.

&quot;For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea. I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world,&quot; she wrote last week.

Quiet release

Manning&#39;s defense team is intent on protecting her.&nbsp;

The Oklahoma native had a difficult childhood. After her parents&#39; divorce, Manning moved with her mother to Wales, where she repressed her sexuality and was mocked for her effeminate ways.

The military is therefore keen on keeping her release low-key. No press conference is planned and media massing at the military installation may be hard-pressed to even catch a glimpse of Manning.

&quot;To ensure the privacy and security of Inmate Manning, no further information concerning the release will be provided,&quot; US Army spokesman Dave Foster said in a statement.

Manning, of whom few photographs are publicly available, could find refuge at an aunt&#39;s home in the Washington region.

Unwanted fame

Virtually unknown at the time of her arrest, Manning today is a well-known figure around the world.&nbsp;

Labeled a traitor by President Donald Trump, she has gained the support of celebrities and is seen by many Americans as a courageous rights activist who &nbsp;was handed an unfair sentence for revealing civilian deaths caused by US bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan.

She wasn&#39;t able to flee abroad like Edward Snowden, who in 2013 released documents showing that the NSA was sweeping up US citizens&#39; communications metadata.

Ahead of Manning&#39;s release, a group of musicians released a compilation album with all proceeds to go to the former soldier as she starts a new life.

&quot;Hugs for Chelsea,&quot; a digital album available for a $25 donation, features tracks by artists known for their left-wing activism including Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore.

Trans icon

Manning has also surreptitiously become an icon for transgender activists.

&quot;The first thing Chelsea always says when we talk about her freedom is that she wants to give back to the trans community,&quot; said Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is himself transgender.

Manning was able to start hormonal treatment in prison to begin transitioning toward her female identity. This transition is certain to speed up outside a prison environment Manning said denied her &quot;right to exist.&quot;

While Manning&#39;s sentence was commuted, her conviction remains intact. Manning, who will turn 30 in December, has appealed.&nbsp;

She is also still employed by the army, and retains its insurance coverage.

&quot;Manning is statutorily entitled to medical care while on excess leave in an active duty status, pending final appellate review,&quot; said Foster, the Army spokesman.&nbsp;

(WION with AFP inputs)

&nbsp;

Manning was arrested?in 2010 over the release of more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks

US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been released from prison after serving a seven-year prison term. Former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, a transgender was jailed for one of the largest leaks of classified documents in US history walked free from a military prison today. Manning "has been released from the United States Disciplinary Barracks" at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a brief statement. "After another anxious four months of waiting, the day has finally arrived. I am looking forward to so much!" Manning, whose sentence was commuted by former president Barack Obama, said in a statement via her legal team. "Whatever is ahead of me, is far more important than the past," said the 29-year-old, who served seven of a 35-year sentence over one of the largest leaks of classified documents in US history. "I'm figuring things out right now -- which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me." First steps of freedom!! ??https://t.co/kPPWV5epwa#ChelseaIsFree pic.twitter.com/0R5pXqA1VN — Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) May 17, 2017 × In July 2010, Manning, then a male soldier known as Bradley, was arrested over the release of a huge trove of more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents via WikiLeaks. Without Obama's parting gift, Manning, who served as an intelligence official in Iraq, would have remained behind bars until 2045, after serving a 35-year sentence. Supporters of Manning -- who attempted suicide twice last year alone -- said they feared she would not have been able to survive the long sentence. Now, she can complete her transition as a free, openly transgender woman. "Two more days until the freedom of civilian life," Manning tweeted Monday. "Now hunting for private #healthcare like millions of Americans." Manning, now 29, also went on a hunger strike during her detention to denounce the disciplinary measures to which she was subjected -- including stints in solitary confinement. "For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea. I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world," she wrote last week. Quiet release Manning's defense team is intent on protecting her. The Oklahoma native had a difficult childhood. After her parents' divorce, Manning moved with her mother to Wales, where she repressed her sexuality and was mocked for her effeminate ways. The military is therefore keen on keeping her release low-key. No press conference is planned and media massing at the military installation may be hard-pressed to even catch a glimpse of Manning. "To ensure the privacy and security of Inmate Manning, no further information concerning the release will be provided," US Army spokesman Dave Foster said in a statement. Manning, of whom few photographs are publicly available, could find refuge at an aunt's home in the Washington region. Unwanted fame Virtually unknown at the time of her arrest, Manning today is a well-known figure around the world. Labeled a traitor by President Donald Trump, she has gained the support of celebrities and is seen by many Americans as a courageous rights activist who was handed an unfair sentence for revealing civilian deaths caused by US bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan. She wasn't able to flee abroad like Edward Snowden, who in 2013 released documents showing that the NSA was sweeping up US citizens' communications metadata. Ahead of Manning's release, a group of musicians released a compilation album with all proceeds to go to the former soldier as she starts a new life. "Hugs for Chelsea," a digital album available for a $25 donation, features tracks by artists known for their left-wing activism including Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore. Trans icon Manning has also surreptitiously become an icon for transgender activists. "The first thing Chelsea always says when we talk about her freedom is that she wants to give back to the trans community," said Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is himself transgender. Manning was able to start hormonal treatment in prison to begin transitioning toward her female identity. This transition is certain to speed up outside a prison environment Manning said denied her "right to exist." While Manning's sentence was commuted, her conviction remains intact. Manning, who will turn 30 in December, has appealed. She is also still employed by the army, and retains its insurance coverage. "Manning is statutorily entitled to medical care while on excess leave in an active duty status, pending final appellate review," said Foster, the Army spokesman. (WION with AFP inputs)

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning released from US prison

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US &quot;priority,&quot; Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero.

&quot;We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,&quot; Sessions, America&#39;s top cop, said at a news conference in response to a reporter&#39;s question about a US priority to arrest Assange. 
 
The Justice Department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

&quot;This is a matter that&#39;s gone beyond anything I&#39;m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious,&quot; he said.&nbsp;

&quot;Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.&quot;

Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

Several other media outlets also cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reports.

Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

Assange&#39;s case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton`s campaign and the Democratic party.

US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election.

Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

Donald Trump publicly praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 US election.

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9OxbYva_szc" width="560"></iframe>

Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agency`s top-secret hacking operations.&nbsp;

The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

Supporters of WikiLeaks say it&#39;s practicing the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a &quot;hostile intelligence service,&quot; saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators.

Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States.

&quot;WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence... And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations,&quot; said Pompeo.

&quot;It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is -- a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.&quot;

The day before Pompeo spoke, Assange published an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he said his group&#39;s mission was the same as America`s most respected newspapers: &quot;to publish newsworthy content.&quot; 
 
&quot;WikiLeaks&#39;s sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths,&quot; he said, professing &quot;overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America.&quot; 
 
(AFP)

 
&nbsp;

US authorities were preparing charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US "priority," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero. "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," Sessions, America's top cop, said at a news conference in response to a reporter's question about a US priority to arrest Assange. The Justice Department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented. "This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious," he said. "Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail." Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter. Several other media outlets also cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reports. Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies. He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010. Assange's case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton`s campaign and the Democratic party. US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election. Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump. Donald Trump publicly praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 US election. Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agency`s top-secret hacking operations. The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence. Supporters of WikiLeaks say it's practicing the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service," saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators. Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence... And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations," said Pompeo. "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is -- a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia." The day before Pompeo spoke, Assange published an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he said his group's mission was the same as America`s most respected newspapers: "to publish newsworthy content." "WikiLeaks's sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths," he said, professing "overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America." (AFP)

Assange's arrest a priority for US, says attorney general Jeff Sessions

The FBI possesses information indicating&nbsp;associates of US President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the divulging of information damaging to Hillary Clinton&#39;s presidential campaign, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-officials-info-suggests-trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians/index.html" target="_blank">CNN </a>reports, citing US officials.

One source told CNN that this is what FBI Director James Comey alluded to when he announced on Monday that not only was the FBI investigating Russian interference in the US election, but the Trump campaign&#39;s ties to Russia.

The information the FBI is now reviewing, CNN reports citing those US officials, includes: human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings.

US officials told CNN this information intelligence was not taken from the leaked dossier of unverified compiled by Christopher Steele, who was hired by Trump&#39;s opponents (first Republicans, then by Democrats), though that dossier also suggested there was coordination between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign.

These officials have cautioned that the investigation is ongoing and that the information was not conclusive, though it has raised the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence that &quot;coordination&quot; may have taken place.

&quot;Coordination&quot; is a term Comey described during the Monday&#39;s House Intelligence hearing: He made a distinction between two parties actively working together, and one party manipulating a second party into advancing the first party&#39;s interests without them knowing.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Background: Is there anything else&nbsp;to suggest links between Trump and Russia?

Two days after the US election, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/moscow-had-contacts-with-trump-team-during-campaign-russian-diplomat-says/2016/11/10/28fb82fa-a73d-11e6-9bd6-184ab22d218e_story.html?utm_term=.30420cbf06da" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> reported&nbsp;Russian officials saying they &quot;conferred&quot;&nbsp;with the Trump campaign, saying &quot;there were contacts&quot;, during the election.

&quot;Obviously we know most of the people from his entourage,&quot; said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Trump spokesman Hope Hicks said the campaign&nbsp;had &quot;no contact with Russian officials&quot;.

&nbsp;

Yesterday, an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-22/urgent-manafort-s-plan-to-greatly-benefit-the-putin-government" target="_blank">Associated Press</a> report&nbsp;claimed that Paul Manafort, Trump&#39;s election campaign manager for 143 days, signed a $10 million anual contract&nbsp;in 2006 from a Russian billionaire&nbsp;to advance Russian president&nbsp;Vladimir Putin&#39;s interests.

Manafort <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-resigns-from-trump-campaign-227197" target="_blank">stepped down</a> from Trump&#39;s campaign after it became known that he lobbied for the pro-Putin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort denies he is&nbsp;linked to Russia.

&nbsp;

As <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/former-trump-advisor-admits-to-innocuous-private-contact-with-russian-dnc-hacker-during-election-13270">WION </a>wrote on March 11, then-Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone has&nbsp;admitted to having direct contact with both Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and the hacker who hacked the Democrats&#39; emails during the US election Guccifer 2.0, who US intelligence says is really just a front for the Russian military intelligence agency.

On Monday&#39;s <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/20/1645393/-Comey-confirms-that-Russia-used-WikiLeaks-which-Trump-loves-to-release-hacked-information" target="_blank">hearing</a>, FBI Director James Comey said that the Russians hacked the Democrats and used &quot;cutouts&quot;...&quot;to cover up that they were the ones releasing&quot; the stolen information.

Roger Stone <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics/kfile-roger-stone-wikileaks-claims/" target="_blank">appeared </a>to have advanced knowledge of the contents of the emails WikiLeaks possessed before they were made public. Roger Stone has denied there was anything illegal or improper in this communication.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Wikileaks?src=hash">#Wikileaks</a>.
&mdash; Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/782443074874138624">October 2, 2016</a></blockquote>
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The first time WikiLeaks published Democrat campaign chief John Podesta&#39;s hacked emails came about&nbsp;two hours after the recording of Donald Trump saying he grabbed women &quot;<a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/10/7/13205842/trump-secret-recording-women" target="_blank">by the p*ssy</a>&quot;.

Afterwards, Trump praised WikiLeaks and continued throughout the election to use&nbsp;Podesta&#39;s hacked emails&nbsp;to cudgel Clinton.

During the third presidential debate, Donald Trump spoke directly to Russia, encouraging them to hack his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton, saying: &quot;Russia, if you&#39;re listening, I hope you&#39;re able to find the 30,000 [Democrat] emails that are missing.&quot;

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Trump&#39;s pick for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of the world&#39;s largest publicly traded&nbsp;international oil and gas company ExxonMobil, was personally awarded the &quot;Order of frienship&quot; from Vladimir Putin, given to &quot;reward foreign nationals whose work, deeds and efforts were aimed at the betterment of relations with the Russian Federation and its people&quot;. Despite having one of the most sought after jobs in politics anywhere Tillerson has no prior experience in politics.&nbsp;A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/79fecace-0ee2-11e7-b030-768954394623" target="_blank">report </a>yesterday said Tillerson was &quot;stunned&quot; when he was approached for the job, as he was preparing for retirement.

Several members of Trump&#39;s campaign and White House administration have had contacts with Russian officials&nbsp;and lied about it, including: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had to recuse himself from any Trump-Russia probe after meeting Russian ambassador to the US Sergey&nbsp;Kislyak at least three times despite saying under oath he had never met any Russian officials;&nbsp;National Security Adviser Gen Michael Flynn, who had to resign after he was recorded discussing American sanctions against Russia with Ambassador Kislyak&nbsp;and lying about it, even to Vice President Mike Pence; Carter Page, and JD Gordon.

<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-russian-ambassador-sergey-kislyak-meeting-election-campaign-a7617261.html">Donald Trump</a> himself met with Kislyak, and has both denied and admitted to having a relationship with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCFgYzf4DV4" target="_blank">Vladimir Putin.</a>

(WION)

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

US officials say this after FBI Director Comey announced that the US president is under formal investigation for his links to Russia

The FBI possesses information indicating associates of US President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the divulging of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, CNN reports, citing US officials. One source told CNN that this is what FBI Director James Comey alluded to when he announced on Monday that not only was the FBI investigating Russian interference in the US election, but the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. The information the FBI is now reviewing, CNN reports citing those US officials, includes: human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings. US officials told CNN this information intelligence was not taken from the leaked dossier of unverified compiled by Christopher Steele, who was hired by Trump's opponents (first Republicans, then by Democrats), though that dossier also suggested there was coordination between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign. These officials have cautioned that the investigation is ongoing and that the information was not conclusive, though it has raised the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence that "coordination" may have taken place. "Coordination" is a term Comey described during the Monday's House Intelligence hearing: He made a distinction between two parties actively working together, and one party manipulating a second party into advancing the first party's interests without them knowing. Background: Is there anything else to suggest links between Trump and Russia? Two days after the US election, the Washington Post reported Russian officials saying they "conferred" with the Trump campaign, saying "there were contacts", during the election. "Obviously we know most of the people from his entourage," said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Trump spokesman Hope Hicks said the campaign had "no contact with Russian officials". Yesterday, an Associated Press report claimed that Paul Manafort, Trump's election campaign manager for 143 days, signed a $10 million anual contract in 2006 from a Russian billionaire to advance Russian president Vladimir Putin's interests. Manafort stepped down from Trump's campaign after it became known that he lobbied for the pro-Putin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort denies he is linked to Russia. As WION wrote on March 11, then-Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone has admitted to having direct contact with both Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and the hacker who hacked the Democrats' emails during the US election Guccifer 2.0, who US intelligence says is really just a front for the Russian military intelligence agency. On Monday's hearing, FBI Director James Comey said that the Russians hacked the Democrats and used "cutouts"..."to cover up that they were the ones releasing" the stolen information. Roger Stone appeared to have advanced knowledge of the contents of the emails WikiLeaks possessed before they were made public. Roger Stone has denied there was anything illegal or improper in this communication. Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks. — Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) October 2, 2016 × The first time WikiLeaks published Democrat campaign chief John Podesta's hacked emails came about two hours after the recording of Donald Trump saying he grabbed women "by the p*ssy". Afterwards, Trump praised WikiLeaks and continued throughout the election to use Podesta's hacked emails to cudgel Clinton. During the third presidential debate, Donald Trump spoke directly to Russia, encouraging them to hack his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton, saying: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Democrat] emails that are missing." Trump's pick for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of the world's largest publicly traded international oil and gas company ExxonMobil, was personally awarded the "Order of frienship" from Vladimir Putin, given to "reward foreign nationals whose work, deeds and efforts were aimed at the betterment of relations with the Russian Federation and its people". Despite having one of the most sought after jobs in politics anywhere Tillerson has no prior experience in politics. A report yesterday said Tillerson was "stunned" when he was approached for the job, as he was preparing for retirement. Several members of Trump's campaign and White House administration have had contacts with Russian officials and lied about it, including: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had to recuse himself from any Trump-Russia probe after meeting Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak at least three times despite saying under oath he had never met any Russian officials; National Security Adviser Gen Michael Flynn, who had to resign after he was recorded discussing American sanctions against Russia with Ambassador Kislyak and lying about it, even to Vice President Mike Pence; Carter Page, and JD Gordon. Donald Trump himself met with Kislyak, and has both denied and admitted to having a relationship with Vladimir Putin. (WION)

New evidence suggests Trump associates may have coordinated with Russian officials: CNN

Former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone said&nbsp;he had &quot;completely innocuous&quot; private contact during the election with Guccifer 2.0, the online handle involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee,&nbsp;Stone&nbsp;told <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/10/roger-stone-trump-confidant-acknowledges-innocuous/" target="_blank">The Washington Times</a> Friday.

&quot;It was so perfunctory, brief and banal I had forgotten it,&quot; he told The Times. &quot;The content of the exchange is, as you can see completely innocuous and perfunctory,&quot; Mr Stone said. The interaction he provided to The Times&nbsp;consisted of only three messages from his own Twitter account.

US intelligence says&nbsp;that Guccifer 2.0 is not the self-procaimed&nbsp;Romanian&nbsp;hacktivist&nbsp;it claims to be,&nbsp;but really the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency. They claim with high confidence that it hacked the Democrats to interfere in the US election to get Trump elected. It claims that&nbsp;Russian hackers penetrated the DNC and released the documents to WikiLeaks, among other websites, in part of a multi-pronged operation to interfere with the US election.&nbsp;

Last week,&nbsp;Roger Stone also&nbsp;admitted to having a&nbsp;&quot;perfectly legal back channel&quot; to <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-ally-says-he-worked-with-assange-pre-election-to-spread-clinton-emails-in-abusive-twitter-tirade-13089" target="_blank">WikiLeaks</a>. Actually, more than a &quot;back channel&quot;, previously he has said: &quot;I have communicated with Assange&quot;.&nbsp;Watch the video&nbsp;of Stone claiming he&nbsp;commuicated&nbsp;with Assange below:

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Listen to &quot;long time Trump advisor&quot; Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: <a href="https://t.co/EclA0jpXIU">pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU</a>
&mdash; justin kanew (@justin_kanew) <a href="https://twitter.com/justin_kanew/status/838485426050641920">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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This latest admission about Guccifer 2.0 confirms that an official Trump campaign advisor&nbsp;had been&nbsp;in direct contact during the&nbsp;election with both WikiLeaks and the Russian hackers who US intelligence says&nbsp;interfered&nbsp;with the election specifically to benefit Trump.&nbsp;

Mr Stone wrote in an email Thursday night to The Washington Times:&nbsp;&quot;I myself had no contacts or communications with the Russian State, Russian Intelligence, or anyone fronting for them or acting as intermediaries for them.&quot;

The next evening&nbsp;he wrote to The Times again: &quot;Even if [Guccifer 2.0] is/was a Russian asset, my brief Aug. 14 correspondence with him on twitter comes AFTER I wrote about his role in the DNC hacks (Aug 5) and AFTER Wikileaks released the DNC material...How does one collaborate on a matter after the fact?&quot;

Roger Stone wrote an article on August 5 for Breitbart claming that the DNC hack was perpetrated by Guccifer 2.0, not by Russia. The Washington Times was provided &quot;a handful&quot; of copies of direct messages between Stone and Guccifer 2.0.

When asked last month if anyone from his staff had communicated with Russia during his campaign, Mr&nbsp;Trump said: &ldquo;Nobody that I know of&rdquo;.&nbsp;

<h3>Read:&nbsp;<a href="http://Trump campaign communicated with Russian hackers during election, claims report" target="_blank">Trump campaign communicated with Russian hackers during election, claims report</a>.</h3>

&nbsp;

Recently it emerged that at least six members of Trump&#39;s&nbsp;staff met with Russian officials during the election, and lied about it. These include: Paul Manafort, JD Gordon, Carter Page, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and even <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-himself-met-russian-ambassador-before-election-report-13160" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> himself. Donald Trump&#39;s Son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner also met with Russian ambassador Serkey Kislyak, but it was after the election.

Both the DNC hack and President Trump&#39;s alleged connections to Russia are being investigated right now by US intelligence.

President Trump and Russian president&nbsp;Vladimir Putin have both denied being involved in the hacks.

(WION)&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Roger Stone said that he communicated directly with Guccifer 2.0, who US intelligence says hacked the Democrats to help get Trump elected

Former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone said he had "completely innocuous" private contact during the election with Guccifer 2.0, the online handle involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee, Stone told The Washington Times Friday. "It was so perfunctory, brief and banal I had forgotten it," he told The Times. "The content of the exchange is, as you can see completely innocuous and perfunctory," Mr Stone said. The interaction he provided to The Times consisted of only three messages from his own Twitter account. US intelligence says that Guccifer 2.0 is not the self-procaimed Romanian hacktivist it claims to be, but really the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency. They claim with high confidence that it hacked the Democrats to interfere in the US election to get Trump elected. It claims that Russian hackers penetrated the DNC and released the documents to WikiLeaks, among other websites, in part of a multi-pronged operation to interfere with the US election. Last week, Roger Stone also admitted to having a "perfectly legal back channel" to WikiLeaks. Actually, more than a "back channel", previously he has said: "I have communicated with Assange". Watch the video of Stone claiming he commuicated with Assange below: Listen to "long time Trump advisor" Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU — justin kanew (@justin_kanew) March 5, 2017 × This latest admission about Guccifer 2.0 confirms that an official Trump campaign advisor had been in direct contact during the election with both WikiLeaks and the Russian hackers who US intelligence says interfered with the election specifically to benefit Trump. Mr Stone wrote in an email Thursday night to The Washington Times: "I myself had no contacts or communications with the Russian State, Russian Intelligence, or anyone fronting for them or acting as intermediaries for them." The next evening he wrote to The Times again: "Even if [Guccifer 2.0] is/was a Russian asset, my brief Aug. 14 correspondence with him on twitter comes AFTER I wrote about his role in the DNC hacks (Aug 5) and AFTER Wikileaks released the DNC material...How does one collaborate on a matter after the fact?" Roger Stone wrote an article on August 5 for Breitbart claming that the DNC hack was perpetrated by Guccifer 2.0, not by Russia. The Washington Times was provided "a handful" of copies of direct messages between Stone and Guccifer 2.0. When asked last month if anyone from his staff had communicated with Russia during his campaign, Mr Trump said: “Nobody that I know of”. Read: Trump campaign communicated with Russian hackers during election, claims report. Recently it emerged that at least six members of Trump's staff met with Russian officials during the election, and lied about it. These include: Paul Manafort, JD Gordon, Carter Page, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and even Donald Trump himself. Donald Trump's Son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner also met with Russian ambassador Serkey Kislyak, but it was after the election. Both the DNC hack and President Trump's alleged connections to Russia are being investigated right now by US intelligence. President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin have both denied being involved in the hacks. (WION)

Former Trump advisor admits to 'innocuous' private contact with Russian DNC hacker during election

Wikileaks will provide technology companies with exclusive access to CIA hacking tools that it possesses so they can patch software flaws, founder Julian Assange said, presenting Silicon Valley with a potential dilemma on how to deal with the anti-secrecy group.

If the offer is legitimate, it would place technology companies in the unusual position of relying on Assange, a man believed by some US officials and lawmakers to be an untrustworthy pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to share cyber vulnerabilities stockpiled by a secretive US spy agency.

It was not clear how WikiLeaks intended to cooperate with the companies. The group published documents on Tuesday describing secret Central Intelligence Agency hacking tools and snippets of computer code. It did not publish the full programs that would be needed to actually conduct cyber exploits against phones, computers and Internet-connected televisions.

&quot;Considering what we think is the best way to proceed and hearing these calls from some of the manufacturers, we have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details that we have so that the fixes can be developed and pushed out, so people can be secure,&quot; Assange said during an online press conference from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Assange took refuge at the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies. 
Microsoft and Cisco Systems, whose wares are subject to attacks described in the documents, said in response to Assange that they welcomed submissions of any vulnerabilities through normal reporting channels.

&quot;We&#39;ve seen Julian Assange&#39;s statement and have not yet been contacted,&quot; a Microsoft representative said. &quot;Our preferred method for anyone with knowledge of security issues, including the CIA or Wikileaks, is to submit details to us at secure@microsoft.com so we can review information and take any necessary steps to protect customers.&quot; 
Representatives of Alphabet Inc&#39;s Google, Apple, Samsung Electronics and Huawei, whose products were also featured in the CIA catalog, did not answer requests for comment.

Responding to Assange, CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu, said in a statement: &quot;As we&rsquo;ve said previously, Julian Assange is not exactly a bastion of truth and integrity.&quot;

&quot;Despite the efforts of Assange and his ilk, CIA continues to aggressively collect foreign intelligence overseas to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries.&quot;

WikiLeaks&#39; disclosures this week caused alarmed in the technology world and among consumers because of the potential privacy implications of the cyber espionage tactics that were described.

One file described a programme known as Weeping Angel that purportedly could take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room.

Other documents described ways to hack into Apple iPhones, devices running Google&#39;s Android software and other gadgets in a way that could observe communications before they are protected by end-to-end encryption offered by messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp.

Several companies have already said they are confident that their recent security updates have accounted for the purported flaws described in the CIA documents. Apple said in a statement on Tuesday that &quot;many of the issues&quot; leaked had already been patched in the latest version of its operating system.

WikiLeaks&#39; publication of the documents reignited a debate about whether US intelligence agencies should hoard serious cyber security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public. An interagency process created under former President Barack Obama called for erring on the side of disclosure.

CIA security

President Donald Trump believes changes are needed to safeguard secrets at the CIA, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing on Thursday. &quot;He believes that the systems at the CIA are outdated and need to be updated.&quot;

Two US intelligence and law enforcement officials told Reuters on Wednesday that intelligence agencies have been aware since the end of last year of a breach at the CIA, which led to WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages of information on its website.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said contractors likely breached security and handed over the documents to WikiLeaks. The CIA has declined to comment on the authenticity of the documents leaked, but the officials said they believed the pages about hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016 were authentic.

Contractors have been revealed as the source of sensitive government information leaks in recent years, most notably Edward Snowden and Harold Martin, both employed by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton while working for the National Security Agency.

Assange said he possessed &quot;a lot more information&quot; about the CIA&#39;s cyber arsenal that would be released soon. He criticized the CIA for &quot;devastating incompetence&quot; for not being able to control access to such sensitive material, and asked whether Obama or Trump were made aware of the breaches.

Assange&#39;s group released Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign that US intelligence agencies say were hacked by Russia to try to tilt the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He is regarded with distaste by many in Washington, although Trump, then the Republican candidate, supported the group&#39;s email releases last year.

Ben Sasse, a Republican senator, said in a statement on Thursday that Assange should &quot;spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jumpsuit.&quot; He is &quot;an enemy of the American people and an ally to Vladimir Putin&quot; who has &quot;has dedicated his life&rsquo;s work to endangering innocent lives, abetting despots, and stoking a crisis of confidence in the West,&quot; Sasse said.

(Reuters)

WikiLeaks recently published documents describing secret Central Intelligence Agency hacking tools and snippets of computer code

Wikileaks will provide technology companies with exclusive access to CIA hacking tools that it possesses so they can patch software flaws, founder Julian Assange said, presenting Silicon Valley with a potential dilemma on how to deal with the anti-secrecy group. If the offer is legitimate, it would place technology companies in the unusual position of relying on Assange, a man believed by some US officials and lawmakers to be an untrustworthy pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to share cyber vulnerabilities stockpiled by a secretive US spy agency. It was not clear how WikiLeaks intended to cooperate with the companies. The group published documents on Tuesday describing secret Central Intelligence Agency hacking tools and snippets of computer code. It did not publish the full programs that would be needed to actually conduct cyber exploits against phones, computers and Internet-connected televisions. "Considering what we think is the best way to proceed and hearing these calls from some of the manufacturers, we have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details that we have so that the fixes can be developed and pushed out, so people can be secure," Assange said during an online press conference from the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Assange took refuge at the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies. Microsoft and Cisco Systems, whose wares are subject to attacks described in the documents, said in response to Assange that they welcomed submissions of any vulnerabilities through normal reporting channels. "We've seen Julian Assange's statement and have not yet been contacted," a Microsoft representative said. "Our preferred method for anyone with knowledge of security issues, including the CIA or Wikileaks, is to submit details to us at secure@microsoft.com so we can review information and take any necessary steps to protect customers." Representatives of Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple, Samsung Electronics and Huawei, whose products were also featured in the CIA catalog, did not answer requests for comment. Responding to Assange, CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu, said in a statement: "As we’ve said previously, Julian Assange is not exactly a bastion of truth and integrity." "Despite the efforts of Assange and his ilk, CIA continues to aggressively collect foreign intelligence overseas to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries." WikiLeaks' disclosures this week caused alarmed in the technology world and among consumers because of the potential privacy implications of the cyber espionage tactics that were described. One file described a programme known as Weeping Angel that purportedly could take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room. Other documents described ways to hack into Apple iPhones, devices running Google's Android software and other gadgets in a way that could observe communications before they are protected by end-to-end encryption offered by messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp. Several companies have already said they are confident that their recent security updates have accounted for the purported flaws described in the CIA documents. Apple said in a statement on Tuesday that "many of the issues" leaked had already been patched in the latest version of its operating system. WikiLeaks' publication of the documents reignited a debate about whether US intelligence agencies should hoard serious cyber security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public. An interagency process created under former President Barack Obama called for erring on the side of disclosure. CIA security President Donald Trump believes changes are needed to safeguard secrets at the CIA, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing on Thursday. "He believes that the systems at the CIA are outdated and need to be updated." Two US intelligence and law enforcement officials told Reuters on Wednesday that intelligence agencies have been aware since the end of last year of a breach at the CIA, which led to WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages of information on its website. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said contractors likely breached security and handed over the documents to WikiLeaks. The CIA has declined to comment on the authenticity of the documents leaked, but the officials said they believed the pages about hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016 were authentic. Contractors have been revealed as the source of sensitive government information leaks in recent years, most notably Edward Snowden and Harold Martin, both employed by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton while working for the National Security Agency. Assange said he possessed "a lot more information" about the CIA's cyber arsenal that would be released soon. He criticized the CIA for "devastating incompetence" for not being able to control access to such sensitive material, and asked whether Obama or Trump were made aware of the breaches. Assange's group released Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign that US intelligence agencies say were hacked by Russia to try to tilt the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He is regarded with distaste by many in Washington, although Trump, then the Republican candidate, supported the group's email releases last year. Ben Sasse, a Republican senator, said in a statement on Thursday that Assange should "spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jumpsuit." He is "an enemy of the American people and an ally to Vladimir Putin" who has "has dedicated his life’s work to endangering innocent lives, abetting despots, and stoking a crisis of confidence in the West," Sasse said. (Reuters)

WikiLeaks offers CIA hacking tools to tech companies: Julian Assange

WikiLeaks founder&nbsp;Julian&nbsp;Assange&nbsp;on Thursday accused the CIA of &quot;devastating incompetence&quot; for keeping hacking secrets in one place and said he would work with tech giants to develop fixes after he leaked them.

&quot;This is a historic act of devastating incompetence, to have created such an arsenal and then stored it all in one place,&quot;&nbsp;Assange&nbsp;told a press conference streamed live from Ecuador&#39;s embassy in London, where he has been living as a fugitive from justice since 2012.

&quot;It is impossible to keep effective control of cyber weapons... If you build them, eventually you will lose them,&quot;&nbsp;Assange&nbsp;said.

He said his&nbsp;website had &quot;a lot more information&quot; about the Central Intelligence Agency&#39;s hacking operation but would hold off on publishing it until WikiLeaks had spoken to tech manufacturers about fixes.

&quot;We have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details we have so fixes can be developed and then pushed out.

&quot;Once this material is effectively disarmed by us we will publish additional details about what has been occurring,&quot; he added.

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published nearly 9,000 documents it said were part of a huge trove leaked from the CIA, describing it as the largest ever publication of secret intelligence materials.

&quot;This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA,&quot; it said.

The documents showed that CIA hackers can turn a TV into a listening device, bypass popular encryption apps, and possibly control one&#39;s car.

Most experts believe the materials to be genuine, and US media said Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is opening a criminal probe into the leak.

The source of the materials remained unclear. The investigation could focus on whether the CIA was sloppy in its controls, or, as The Washington Post reported, it could be &quot;a major mole hunt&quot; for a malicious leaker or turncoat inside the agency.

WikiLeaks itself said the documents, hacking tools and code came from an archive that had circulated among US government hackers and private contractors.

An investigation would come as the CIA is already enmeshed in a politically-charged probe into Russia&#39;s alleged interference in the US election last year in support of President Donald Trump&#39;s campaign.

WikiLeaks, which has stunned the US government with a series of publications of top secret political, diplomatic and intelligence materials in recent years, said Tuesday&#39;s leak was only the first of a series of releases of CIA hacking materials.

(AFP)

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published nearly 9,000 documents it said were part of a huge trove leaked from the CIA

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday accused the CIA of "devastating incompetence" for keeping hacking secrets in one place and said he would work with tech giants to develop fixes after he leaked them. "This is a historic act of devastating incompetence, to have created such an arsenal and then stored it all in one place," Assange told a press conference streamed live from Ecuador's embassy in London, where he has been living as a fugitive from justice since 2012. "It is impossible to keep effective control of cyber weapons... If you build them, eventually you will lose them," Assange said. He said his website had "a lot more information" about the Central Intelligence Agency's hacking operation but would hold off on publishing it until WikiLeaks had spoken to tech manufacturers about fixes. "We have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details we have so fixes can be developed and then pushed out. "Once this material is effectively disarmed by us we will publish additional details about what has been occurring," he added. On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published nearly 9,000 documents it said were part of a huge trove leaked from the CIA, describing it as the largest ever publication of secret intelligence materials. "This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA," it said. The documents showed that CIA hackers can turn a TV into a listening device, bypass popular encryption apps, and possibly control one's car. Most experts believe the materials to be genuine, and US media said Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is opening a criminal probe into the leak. The source of the materials remained unclear. The investigation could focus on whether the CIA was sloppy in its controls, or, as The Washington Post reported, it could be "a major mole hunt" for a malicious leaker or turncoat inside the agency. WikiLeaks itself said the documents, hacking tools and code came from an archive that had circulated among US government hackers and private contractors. An investigation would come as the CIA is already enmeshed in a politically-charged probe into Russia's alleged interference in the US election last year in support of President Donald Trump's campaign. WikiLeaks, which has stunned the US government with a series of publications of top secret political, diplomatic and intelligence materials in recent years, said Tuesday's leak was only the first of a series of releases of CIA hacking materials. (AFP)

Assange accuses CIA of 'devastating incompetence' over leaks, says has more information on hacking operation

Tech companies must rapidly step up information-sharing to protect users from prying eyes, a security software executive said on Wednesday after WikiLeaks released a trove of data purporting to show that the CIA can hack all manner of devices.

Dozens of firms rushed to contain the damage from possible security weak points following the anti-secrecy organisation&#39;s revelations, although some said they needed far more information on what the US intelligence agency was up to before they could thwart suspected but previously hidden attacks.

Sinan Eren, vice president of Czech anti-virus software maker Avast, called on mobile software makers Apple and Google to supply security firms with privileged access to their devices to offer immediate fixes to known bugs.

&quot;We can prevent attacks in real time if we are given the hooks into the mobile operating system,&quot; Eren said in a phone interview from Silicon Valley, where he is located.

&quot;If we can drive a paradigm shift where mobile platforms don&#39;t shut off access, we&#39;ll be better able to detect when hackers are hiding in a mobile (phone)&quot;, he said.

Avast, which counts more than 400 million users of its anti-virus software worldwide, was named in the WikiLeaks documents as one of the security vendors targeted by the CIA in a leaked page labelled &quot;secret&quot; but lacking further details.

The leaks - which WikiLeaks described as the biggest in the Central Intelligence Agency&#39;s history - had enough technical details for security experts and product vendors to recognise that widespread compromises exist. However, they provided few specifics needed to offer quick fixes.

Reuters could not immediately verify the validity of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials appeared to be legitimate. The 8,761 leaked documents list a wealth of security attacks on Apple and Google Android smartphones carried by billions of consumers, as well as top computer operating systems - Windows, Linux and Apple Mac - and six of the world&#39;s main web browsers.

Apple said in a statement that nearly 80 per cent of iPhone users run its current iOS software with the latest security patches. &quot;Many of the issues leaked were already patched in the latest iOS; we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities,&quot; Apple said on Tuesday. The statement made no reference to attacks on its computer software.

Google declined to comment, while a Microsoft spokeswoman said: &quot;We&#39;re aware of the report and are looking into it.&quot; 
Widely-used routers from Silicon Valley-based Cisco were listed as targets, as were those supplied by Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE and Taiwanese supplier Zyxel for their devices used in China and Pakistan.

Cisco security team members said in a blog post that because WikiLeaks has not released any of the actual hacking exploits, &quot;the scope of action that can be taken by Cisco is limited&quot;.

Omar Santos, a principal engineer in Cisco&#39;s security response unit, said malware appears to be targeting whole families of Cisco devices but is designed to remain hidden so as to steal data unnoticed. He said Cisco assumes WikiLeaks will eventually disclose the hacks, allowing it to fix them.

Huawei declined to comment. ZTE and Zyxel were not immediately available to respond.

Stay of execution

Messaging apps protected by full software encryption also appear to be vulnerable to hacking of the smartphones themselves, communications app provider Telegram said in a blog post. But one positive outcome may be that device and software makers will be able to close up these holes, it said.

&quot;This is not an app issue. It is relevant on the level of devices and operating systems like iOS and Android,&quot; Telegram stated, adding: &quot;The good news is that for the moment all of this is irrelevant for the majority of Telegram users. If the CIA is not on your back, you shouldn&#39;t start worrying just yet.&quot;

The WikiLeaks collection contains a mix of copious data and empty files marked &quot;secret&quot; that promised more details to come on attacks against more than 15 security software firms.

US cyber security expert Robert Graham said WikiLeaks provided enough detail to recognise some known vulnerabilities.

&quot;One anti-virus researcher has told me that a virus they once suspected came from the Russians or Chinese can now be attributed to the CIA, as it matches the description perfectly to something in the leak,&quot; Graham said in a blog post.

Some security experts said the CIA&#39;s possible use of tools from other spy agencies raised the risk of false attribution for targeted cyber attacks by the US intelligence agency.&nbsp; He said CIA cyber spying efforts could be set back years.

The CIA and White House declined to comment. &quot;We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,&quot; CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement.

WikiLeaks said it aims to provoke a political and legal debate about the CIA&#39;s cyber arsenal. However, it was holding back, for now, much of the technical documentation that would allow other hackers and cyber criminals to exploit the hacks - while putting vendors on notice to expect further revelations.

The organisation said in a statement it is &quot;avoiding the distribution of &#39;armed&#39; cyber weapons until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA&#39;s program and how such &#39;weapons&#39; should be analysed, disarmed and published&quot;.

It described sophisticated tools for targeting the devices of individual users, in contrast to the revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of mass data collection on millions of web and phone users worldwide.

(Reuters)

Dozens of tech firms rush to contain the damage from possible security weak points following the anti-secrecy organisation's revelations

Tech companies must rapidly step up information-sharing to protect users from prying eyes, a security software executive said on Wednesday after WikiLeaks released a trove of data purporting to show that the CIA can hack all manner of devices. Dozens of firms rushed to contain the damage from possible security weak points following the anti-secrecy organisation's revelations, although some said they needed far more information on what the US intelligence agency was up to before they could thwart suspected but previously hidden attacks. Sinan Eren, vice president of Czech anti-virus software maker Avast, called on mobile software makers Apple and Google to supply security firms with privileged access to their devices to offer immediate fixes to known bugs. "We can prevent attacks in real time if we are given the hooks into the mobile operating system," Eren said in a phone interview from Silicon Valley, where he is located. "If we can drive a paradigm shift where mobile platforms don't shut off access, we'll be better able to detect when hackers are hiding in a mobile (phone)", he said. Avast, which counts more than 400 million users of its anti-virus software worldwide, was named in the WikiLeaks documents as one of the security vendors targeted by the CIA in a leaked page labelled "secret" but lacking further details. The leaks - which WikiLeaks described as the biggest in the Central Intelligence Agency's history - had enough technical details for security experts and product vendors to recognise that widespread compromises exist. However, they provided few specifics needed to offer quick fixes. Reuters could not immediately verify the validity of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials appeared to be legitimate. The 8,761 leaked documents list a wealth of security attacks on Apple and Google Android smartphones carried by billions of consumers, as well as top computer operating systems - Windows, Linux and Apple Mac - and six of the world's main web browsers. Apple said in a statement that nearly 80 per cent of iPhone users run its current iOS software with the latest security patches. "Many of the issues leaked were already patched in the latest iOS; we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities," Apple said on Tuesday. The statement made no reference to attacks on its computer software. Google declined to comment, while a Microsoft spokeswoman said: "We're aware of the report and are looking into it." Widely-used routers from Silicon Valley-based Cisco were listed as targets, as were those supplied by Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE and Taiwanese supplier Zyxel for their devices used in China and Pakistan. Cisco security team members said in a blog post that because WikiLeaks has not released any of the actual hacking exploits, "the scope of action that can be taken by Cisco is limited". Omar Santos, a principal engineer in Cisco's security response unit, said malware appears to be targeting whole families of Cisco devices but is designed to remain hidden so as to steal data unnoticed. He said Cisco assumes WikiLeaks will eventually disclose the hacks, allowing it to fix them. Huawei declined to comment. ZTE and Zyxel were not immediately available to respond. Stay of execution Messaging apps protected by full software encryption also appear to be vulnerable to hacking of the smartphones themselves, communications app provider Telegram said in a blog post. But one positive outcome may be that device and software makers will be able to close up these holes, it said. "This is not an app issue. It is relevant on the level of devices and operating systems like iOS and Android," Telegram stated, adding: "The good news is that for the moment all of this is irrelevant for the majority of Telegram users. If the CIA is not on your back, you shouldn't start worrying just yet." The WikiLeaks collection contains a mix of copious data and empty files marked "secret" that promised more details to come on attacks against more than 15 security software firms. US cyber security expert Robert Graham said WikiLeaks provided enough detail to recognise some known vulnerabilities. "One anti-virus researcher has told me that a virus they once suspected came from the Russians or Chinese can now be attributed to the CIA, as it matches the description perfectly to something in the leak," Graham said in a blog post. Some security experts said the CIA's possible use of tools from other spy agencies raised the risk of false attribution for targeted cyber attacks by the US intelligence agency. He said CIA cyber spying efforts could be set back years. The CIA and White House declined to comment. "We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement. WikiLeaks said it aims to provoke a political and legal debate about the CIA's cyber arsenal. However, it was holding back, for now, much of the technical documentation that would allow other hackers and cyber criminals to exploit the hacks - while putting vendors on notice to expect further revelations. The organisation said in a statement it is "avoiding the distribution of 'armed' cyber weapons until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should be analysed, disarmed and published". It described sophisticated tools for targeting the devices of individual users, in contrast to the revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of mass data collection on millions of web and phone users worldwide. (Reuters)

WikiLeaks' CIA hacking revelations: How Apple, Google and other tech firms rush to protect user privacy

The website WikiLeaks&nbsp;released thousands of documents that described internal US&nbsp;Central Intelligence Agency discussions on hacking techniques it used between 2013 and 2016 to circumvent security on electronic devices for spying.

US&nbsp;officials said on Wednesday that CIA contractors were the likely source of the leak.

The following are some questions and answers users of consumer electronics may have:

Q: How many of the vulnerabilities described in the Wikileaks document are still open to exploit by hackers or spies?

A: There is no definitive answer in the documents, which describe attack techniques but often do not give enough detail for even the device and software vendors to understand fully&nbsp;how their products were targeted and close the security holes.

Software updates have solved many of the flaws but it is unclear how many remain. In a chart of exploits for Apple&rsquo;s iPhone, the most recent version listed as hackable was iOS 9.2, which was released in late 2015.

Q: What did we learn about the CIA&#39;s hacking programme?

A. WikiLeaks published documents that it says describe CIA tools for hacking into devices including mobile phones, computers and smart televisions.

Q: How can you hack a TV?

A: WikiLeaks said it identified a project known as Weeping Angel where US&nbsp;and British intelligence agencies developed ways to take over Samsung smart TVs equipped with microphones, forcing them to record conversations when the device appeared to be turned off. Experts have long said smart TVs and other Internet-connected devices can be exploited to monitor a target.

Q: Are these revelations new?

A: While the specific details are new, it is well known in the cyber security community that intelligence agencies are constantly trying to leverage flaws in technology products to conduct espionage.

Q: The documents suggest that the CIA can access information in encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal. I thought they were safe from even government spying?

A: No system is perfect. The documents describe ways to get information in those apps on Android devices, but only after gaining full control of those phones. Reuters has not found evidence in the documents released by WikiLeaks that the CIA had figured a way to break the encryption in those apps.

Q: Are iPhones also vulnerable?

A: The documents discuss ways to get into iPhones as well. One appeared to show a list of Apple iOS security flaws purchased by US&nbsp;intelligence agencies so they could gain access to those devices.

Q: What should I do if I&#39;m worried?

A: Most people do not need to worry about being targeted by intelligence agencies. But everybody should stay on top of software patches so all their computers, mobile phones and other connected devices are running software with the latest security updates. Consumers should balance security concerns with their need to use smart devices.

Q: What did we learn about how the CIA may try to make American hacking look like the work of hackers from other countries like Russia?

A: The CIA has a library of attack code taken from multiple sources and sorted by function, including a programme from a Russian criminal kit that permits spyware to survive rebooting and a data-destruction tool lifted from a suspected Iranian operation. One purpose of such a collection is to avoid having to write programs from scratch, while another is to confuse anyone who discovers the malware in action.

The documents released so far do not show that the CIA set out to deceive victims into believing they had been hacked by someone else, but it suggests that the agency was capable of doing so if it wanted.

Q: Is this as big as the leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden?

A: The Snowden leaks revealed that the NSA was secretly collecting US&nbsp;call metadata on ordinary Americans. The materials released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday did not appear to reveal the existence of unknown any unknown programs. Instead they supplied details on how US&nbsp;intelligence agencies work to discover and exploit security flaws to conduct espionage.

Q: How damaging is this revelation to US&nbsp;intelligence?

A:&nbsp;US&nbsp;intelligence officials say the damage is limited because much of what was published is old, a number of the vulnerabilities in smart TVs and other devices have been known for at least two years and many have been patched. The breach was discovered late last year according to U.S. officials and most or all of the tools WikiLeaks published are no longer in use.

In addition, they said, unless additional codes that would enable users to exploit the leaked material are also published, it would be difficult for other countries, groups, or people to use the leaked material against the United States or its allies.

Q: Are the documents authentic?

A: Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents. US&nbsp;officials told Reuters that they believe the documents are authentic. While the CIA has declined to comment, independent cyber security experts and former intelligence agency employees who have looked through them say that they appear to be authentic, citing code words used to describe CIA hacking programs.

Q: How did WikiLeaks get the information?

A: Unclear. Someone inside the agency may have leaked the information. Or, someone outside may have figured out a way to steal it. US&nbsp;officials told Reuters on Wednesday that contractors were the likely source for the leak.

Q: What has the US&nbsp;government and other governments said in response?

A: The White House said US&nbsp;President Donald&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;was &quot;extremely concerned&quot; about the CIA security breach that led to the WikiLeaks release.

Germany&#39;s chief federal prosecutor&#39;s office said it would review the WikiLeaks documents which suggest the CIA ran a hacking hub from the US&nbsp;consulate in Frankfurt, and would launch a formal investigation if warranted.

(Reuters)

WikiLeaks released a trove of documents detailing how CIA hacked into voice and text messages from phones

The website WikiLeaks released thousands of documents that described internal US Central Intelligence Agency discussions on hacking techniques it used between 2013 and 2016 to circumvent security on electronic devices for spying. US officials said on Wednesday that CIA contractors were the likely source of the leak. The following are some questions and answers users of consumer electronics may have: Q: How many of the vulnerabilities described in the Wikileaks document are still open to exploit by hackers or spies? A: There is no definitive answer in the documents, which describe attack techniques but often do not give enough detail for even the device and software vendors to understand fully how their products were targeted and close the security holes. Software updates have solved many of the flaws but it is unclear how many remain. In a chart of exploits for Apple’s iPhone, the most recent version listed as hackable was iOS 9.2, which was released in late 2015. Q: What did we learn about the CIA's hacking programme? A. WikiLeaks published documents that it says describe CIA tools for hacking into devices including mobile phones, computers and smart televisions. Q: How can you hack a TV? A: WikiLeaks said it identified a project known as Weeping Angel where US and British intelligence agencies developed ways to take over Samsung smart TVs equipped with microphones, forcing them to record conversations when the device appeared to be turned off. Experts have long said smart TVs and other Internet-connected devices can be exploited to monitor a target. Q: Are these revelations new? A: While the specific details are new, it is well known in the cyber security community that intelligence agencies are constantly trying to leverage flaws in technology products to conduct espionage. Q: The documents suggest that the CIA can access information in encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal. I thought they were safe from even government spying? A: No system is perfect. The documents describe ways to get information in those apps on Android devices, but only after gaining full control of those phones. Reuters has not found evidence in the documents released by WikiLeaks that the CIA had figured a way to break the encryption in those apps. Q: Are iPhones also vulnerable? A: The documents discuss ways to get into iPhones as well. One appeared to show a list of Apple iOS security flaws purchased by US intelligence agencies so they could gain access to those devices. Q: What should I do if I'm worried? A: Most people do not need to worry about being targeted by intelligence agencies. But everybody should stay on top of software patches so all their computers, mobile phones and other connected devices are running software with the latest security updates. Consumers should balance security concerns with their need to use smart devices. Q: What did we learn about how the CIA may try to make American hacking look like the work of hackers from other countries like Russia? A: The CIA has a library of attack code taken from multiple sources and sorted by function, including a programme from a Russian criminal kit that permits spyware to survive rebooting and a data-destruction tool lifted from a suspected Iranian operation. One purpose of such a collection is to avoid having to write programs from scratch, while another is to confuse anyone who discovers the malware in action. The documents released so far do not show that the CIA set out to deceive victims into believing they had been hacked by someone else, but it suggests that the agency was capable of doing so if it wanted. Q: Is this as big as the leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden? A: The Snowden leaks revealed that the NSA was secretly collecting US call metadata on ordinary Americans. The materials released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday did not appear to reveal the existence of unknown any unknown programs. Instead they supplied details on how US intelligence agencies work to discover and exploit security flaws to conduct espionage. Q: How damaging is this revelation to US intelligence? A: US intelligence officials say the damage is limited because much of what was published is old, a number of the vulnerabilities in smart TVs and other devices have been known for at least two years and many have been patched. The breach was discovered late last year according to U.S. officials and most or all of the tools WikiLeaks published are no longer in use. In addition, they said, unless additional codes that would enable users to exploit the leaked material are also published, it would be difficult for other countries, groups, or people to use the leaked material against the United States or its allies. Q: Are the documents authentic? A: Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents. US officials told Reuters that they believe the documents are authentic. While the CIA has declined to comment, independent cyber security experts and former intelligence agency employees who have looked through them say that they appear to be authentic, citing code words used to describe CIA hacking programs. Q: How did WikiLeaks get the information? A: Unclear. Someone inside the agency may have leaked the information. Or, someone outside may have figured out a way to steal it. US officials told Reuters on Wednesday that contractors were the likely source for the leak. Q: What has the US government and other governments said in response? A: The White House said US President Donald Trump was "extremely concerned" about the CIA security breach that led to the WikiLeaks release. Germany's chief federal prosecutor's office said it would review the WikiLeaks documents which suggest the CIA ran a hacking hub from the US consulate in Frankfurt, and would launch a formal investigation if warranted. (Reuters)

What do I need to know about the CIA's hacking programme?

Trump&#39;s former campaign member, long-time friend&nbsp;and mega supporter Roger Stone was apparently in email communication with the Russian hackers being probed by the FBI, known as &quot;Guccifer 2.0&quot;, according to &quot;a source&quot; in a report filed by <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/roger-stone-and-guccifer-913684" target="_blank">The Smoking Gun</a>&nbsp;(TSG).

Guccifer 2.0 claims to be an independent hacker, but US intelligence says &quot;with high confidence&quot;&nbsp;that it was in fact GRU, Russian Military Intel Service simply&nbsp;operating&nbsp;under the alias &quot;Guccifer 2.0&quot;,&nbsp;with the specific aim&nbsp;to help Donald Trump get elected president.

The email from Guccifer 2.0&nbsp;is dated from&nbsp;June 15, 2016, when Roger Stone was still officially a member of the Trump campaign.

Attached in TSG&#39;s long&nbsp;article about Roger Stone was an&nbsp;email&nbsp;from &quot;Guccifer 2.0&quot; purportedly&nbsp;to Stone himself. Nowhere in the email does it say &quot;Roger Stone&quot;, but TSG&#39;s article also contained&nbsp;an IRS tax document with Roger Stone&#39;s name on it. This does not mean that the email from Guccifer 2.0 is authentically addressed to Roger Stone, but TSG&nbsp;does have a leak that provided&nbsp;official correspondence between Stone and the American Government, ie the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).&nbsp;&nbsp;

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If this email is truly from Russian hackers to an official member of Donald Trump&#39;s election campaign, it would be very, very damning. Photo source: The Smoking Gun. (Others)
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WION contacted&nbsp;TSG to ask about the source of the leak, and for proof that the email from Guccifer 2.0 was indeed mailed to Roger Stone. So far they have not&nbsp;responded, and we will update the article if they do.

&nbsp;

Why would this email prove?

If this email is truly from Guccifer 2.0 to Roger Stone, it means that an official&nbsp;Trump campaign member was in communication with the Russian government, and worked with them as they&nbsp;interfered with the US election on Trump&#39;s behalf.

Before, it was clear that Russia hacked the Democrats,&nbsp;who then&nbsp;sent emails&nbsp;to WikiLeaks. In fact, the first time WikiLeaks published the Democrat&#39;s emails was on October 7, just <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/dec/18/john-podesta/its-true-wikileaks-dumped-podesta-emails-hour-afte/" target="_blank">hours </a>after the recording leaked of Trump saying, &quot;Grab them by the p*ssy&quot;.&nbsp;

But there was no proof that Trump worked directly with Russia, or with WikiLeaks.

That changed days&nbsp;ago when the same <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-ally-says-he-worked-with-assange-pre-election-to-spread-clinton-emails-in-abusive-twitter-tirade-13089" target="_blank">Roger Stone </a>took to Twitter to say he had a &quot;perfectly legal back channel with WikiLeaks&quot; and also&nbsp;said, &quot;Assange does NOT work for Russians and nobody has proved otherwise&quot;. Actually, Stone has admitted to being in &quot;direct contact&quot; with Julian Assange himself. Essentially,&nbsp;the Trump campaign&nbsp;did&nbsp;have open communication with WikiLeaks.

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Listen to &quot;long time Trump advisor&quot; Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: <a href="https://t.co/EclA0jpXIU">pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU</a>
&mdash; justin kanew (@justin_kanew) <a href="https://twitter.com/justin_kanew/status/838485426050641920">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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It may be&nbsp;noteworthy that WikiLeaks was responsible for the&nbsp;biggest ever leak of secret&nbsp;CIA <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-publishes-biggest-ever-leak-of-secret-cia-documents-hacking-surveillance" target="_blank">documents</a>, and it came amid Trump&#39;s ongoing war with US intelligence, and&nbsp;just days after Stone admitted to having a channel of communication with WikiLeaks.

Here is Trump encouraging Russia to hack Clinton&#39;s emails:

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gNa2B5zHfbQ" width="560"></iframe>

While Russia&#39;s interference in the US election may constitute an act of war between the countries, this doesn&#39;t necessarily reflect on President Trump.&nbsp;

But if the Guccifer 2.0-Stone email is confirmed, it&nbsp;proves that the exact same aide in Trump&#39;s campaign was in contact with not just WikiLeaks but with the Russian Military Intelligence Service,&nbsp;the very people who hacked the Democrats.

&nbsp;

Does anything else suggest Russia and Trump are connected?

Jeff Sessions&nbsp;recused himself from the US intelligence&#39;s&nbsp;investigation into the Trump-Russia connection after it emerged that he at least twice met the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and lied about it under oath.

Shortly after Sessions met Kislyak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last summer, the Republican Party changed the language in their policy to become more aligned with Russia. Former Trump aide <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jd-gordon-trump-adviser-ukraine-rnc-2017-3" target="_blank">JD Gordon</a> just claimed this alignment was on the insistence of&nbsp;Donald Trump himself. Historically, Jeff Sessions has been decidedly<a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/2/14790818/jeff-sessions-russia-attorney-general-lie-congress-perjury-recusal" target="_blank"> anti-Russia</a>.

It was also just reported that <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-himself-met-russian-ambassador-before-election-report-13160" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;himself&nbsp;met the Russian ambassador and lied about it. Other members of his administration or his campaign who have done the same include: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, JD Gordon, and as mentioned Jeff Sessions. Trump&#39;s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner also met Kislyak, but after the election.

Flynn had to resign from his position as the head of national security after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/national-security-adviser-flynn-discussed-sanctions-with-russian-ambassador-despite-denials-officials-say/2017/02/09/f85b29d6-ee11-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_usrussia-%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.4def7586fab0" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported that not only did Flynn lie about meeting with the Russian ambassador, but that he called Kislyak repeatedly the day Obama levelled sanctions against Russia to discuss those&nbsp;sanctions. The phone calls were recordedm as per ordinary US intelligence protocol.

From the report, which cited&nbsp;nine senior officials in US intelligence: &quot;All of those officials said Flynn&#39;s reference to the election-related sanctions were explicit.&quot;&nbsp;

The notorious Christopher Steele dossier alleges that Putin, the former head of Russia&#39;s spy agency, has enough information over Trump to blackmail him. That dossier contains allegations that are false, mostly slight error about inessential items.&nbsp;But&nbsp;more and more of it&nbsp;is being <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RbpBxJ3QNyvts_w16UcSSGeH7cSrXK9U3wIq0OOq-Xs/preview" target="_blank">corroborated</a>.

Trump has <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/analysis-trump-russia-and-deutsche-banklinks-that-raise-many-many-questions-11975" target="_blank">many </a>links with Russia, and has had them for decades.&nbsp;

Trump dismisses&nbsp;his&nbsp;alleged connection to Russia as Fake News. It&#39;s a real possibility that this email is not what it claims to be. &nbsp;

But Trump is definitely lying about aspects of his connection to Russia. It would be funny if the stakes weren&#39;t so high, but here is Trump denying he&nbsp;knows Vladimir Putin, while also&nbsp;bragging about his personal relationship with Putin.

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WadK_pXsEGE" width="560"></iframe>

(WION)

A published email claiming to be from 'Guccifer 2.0' to Roger Stone would prove that Trump's campaign communicated with Kremlin hackers

Trump's former campaign member, long-time friend and mega supporter Roger Stone was apparently in email communication with the Russian hackers being probed by the FBI, known as "Guccifer 2.0", according to "a source" in a report filed by The Smoking Gun (TSG). Guccifer 2.0 claims to be an independent hacker, but US intelligence says "with high confidence" that it was in fact GRU, Russian Military Intel Service simply operating under the alias "Guccifer 2.0", with the specific aim to help Donald Trump get elected president. The email from Guccifer 2.0 is dated from June 15, 2016, when Roger Stone was still officially a member of the Trump campaign. Attached in TSG's long article about Roger Stone was an email from "Guccifer 2.0" purportedly to Stone himself. Nowhere in the email does it say "Roger Stone", but TSG's article also contained an IRS tax document with Roger Stone's name on it. This does not mean that the email from Guccifer 2.0 is authentically addressed to Roger Stone, but TSG does have a leak that provided official correspondence between Stone and the American Government, ie the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). If this email is truly from Russian hackers to an official member of Donald Trump's election campaign, it would be very, very damning. Photo source: The Smoking Gun. (Others) × WION contacted TSG to ask about the source of the leak, and for proof that the email from Guccifer 2.0 was indeed mailed to Roger Stone. So far they have not responded, and we will update the article if they do. Why would this email prove? If this email is truly from Guccifer 2.0 to Roger Stone, it means that an official Trump campaign member was in communication with the Russian government, and worked with them as they interfered with the US election on Trump's behalf. Before, it was clear that Russia hacked the Democrats, who then sent emails to WikiLeaks. In fact, the first time WikiLeaks published the Democrat's emails was on October 7, just hours after the recording leaked of Trump saying, "Grab them by the p*ssy". But there was no proof that Trump worked directly with Russia, or with WikiLeaks. That changed days ago when the same Roger Stone took to Twitter to say he had a "perfectly legal back channel with WikiLeaks" and also said, "Assange does NOT work for Russians and nobody has proved otherwise". Actually, Stone has admitted to being in "direct contact" with Julian Assange himself. Essentially, the Trump campaign did have open communication with WikiLeaks. Listen to "long time Trump advisor" Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU — justin kanew (@justin_kanew) March 5, 2017 × It may be noteworthy that WikiLeaks was responsible for the biggest ever leak of secret CIA documents, and it came amid Trump's ongoing war with US intelligence, and just days after Stone admitted to having a channel of communication with WikiLeaks. Here is Trump encouraging Russia to hack Clinton's emails: While Russia's interference in the US election may constitute an act of war between the countries, this doesn't necessarily reflect on President Trump. But if the Guccifer 2.0-Stone email is confirmed, it proves that the exact same aide in Trump's campaign was in contact with not just WikiLeaks but with the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the very people who hacked the Democrats. Does anything else suggest Russia and Trump are connected? Jeff Sessions recused himself from the US intelligence's investigation into the Trump-Russia connection after it emerged that he at least twice met the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and lied about it under oath. Shortly after Sessions met Kislyak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last summer, the Republican Party changed the language in their policy to become more aligned with Russia. Former Trump aide JD Gordon just claimed this alignment was on the insistence of Donald Trump himself. Historically, Jeff Sessions has been decidedly anti-Russia. It was also just reported that Donald Trump himself met the Russian ambassador and lied about it. Other members of his administration or his campaign who have done the same include: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, JD Gordon, and as mentioned Jeff Sessions. Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner also met Kislyak, but after the election. Flynn had to resign from his position as the head of national security after The Washington Post reported that not only did Flynn lie about meeting with the Russian ambassador, but that he called Kislyak repeatedly the day Obama levelled sanctions against Russia to discuss those sanctions. The phone calls were recordedm as per ordinary US intelligence protocol. From the report, which cited nine senior officials in US intelligence: "All of those officials said Flynn's reference to the election-related sanctions were explicit." The notorious Christopher Steele dossier alleges that Putin, the former head of Russia's spy agency, has enough information over Trump to blackmail him. That dossier contains allegations that are false, mostly slight error about inessential items. But more and more of it is being corroborated. Trump has many links with Russia, and has had them for decades. Trump dismisses his alleged connection to Russia as Fake News. It's a real possibility that this email is not what it claims to be. But Trump is definitely lying about aspects of his connection to Russia. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high, but here is Trump denying he knows Vladimir Putin, while also bragging about his personal relationship with Putin. (WION)

Trump campaign communicated with Russian hackers during election, claims report

CIA contractors likely breached security and handed over documents about the agency&#39;s use of hacking tools to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, US&nbsp;intelligence and law enforcement officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity said intelligence agencies have been aware since the end of last year of the breach, which led to WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages on Tuesday.

According to the documents, Central Intelligence Agency hackers could get into Apple Inc iPhones, devices running Google&#39;s Android software and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software.

The White House said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump was &quot;extremely concerned&quot; about the CIA security breach that led to the WikiLeaks release.

&quot;Anybody who leaks classified information will be held to the highest degree of law,&quot; spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.

The two officials told Reuters they believed the published documents about CIA hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016 were authentic.

One of the officials with knowledge of the investigation said companies that are contractors for the CIA have been checking to see which of their employees had access to the material that WikiLeaks published, and then going over their computer logs, emails and other communications for any evidence of who might be responsible.

On Tuesday in a press release, WikiLeaks itself said the CIA had &quot;lost control&quot; of an archive of hacking methods and it appeared to have been circulated &quot;among former US&nbsp;government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.&quot;

A US&nbsp;government source familiar with the matter said it would be normal for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA both to open investigations into such leaks. US&nbsp;officials previously have confirmed that prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia for years have been conducting a federal grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks and its personnel.

A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to comment on the possibility of that probe being expanded. It is not clear if the investigation of the latest CIA leaks is part of the probe.

Some cyber security experts and technology companies have criticized the government for opting to exploit rather than disclose software vulnerabilities, though an interagency review process set up under former President Barack Obama was intended to err on the side of disclosure.

Those concerns would grow if US&nbsp;authorities did not notify companies that CIA documents describing various hacking techniques had been compromised.

Apple, Alphabet Inc&#39;s, Google, Cisco Systems Inc&nbsp;and Oracle Corp did not immediately respond when asked if they were notified of a CIA breach before WikiLeaks made its files public.

At Apple, none of the vulnerabilities described in the documents provoked a panic, though analysis was continuing, according to a person who spoke with engineers there.

&nbsp;

Larger number of contractors

One reason the investigation is focused on a potential leak by contractors rather than for example a hack by Russian intelligence, another official said, is that so far there is no evidence that Russian intelligence agencies tried to exploit any of the leaked material before it was published.

One European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the WikiLeaks material could in fact lead to closer cooperation between European intelligence agencies and US&nbsp;counterparts, which share concerns about Russian intelligence operations.

US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have accused Russia of seeking to tilt last year&#39;s US&nbsp;presidential election in Trump&#39;s favour, including by hacking into Democratic Party emails. Moscow has denied the allegation.

One major security problem was that the number of contractors with access to information with the highest secrecy classification has &quot;exploded&quot; because of federal budget constraints, the first US&nbsp;official said.

US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have been unable to hire additional permanent staff needed to keep pace with technological advances such as the &quot;internet of things&quot; that connects cars, home security and heating systems and other devices to computer networks, or to pay salaries competitive with the private sector, the official said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents. On Tuesday, several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials appeared to be legitimate.

A person familiar with WikiLeaks&rsquo; activities said the group has had the CIA hacking material for months, and that the release of the material was in the works &quot;for a long time&quot;.

Both US&nbsp;Senate and US&nbsp;House of Representatives intelligence committees have either opened or are expected to open inquiries into the CIA breach, congressional officials said.

&nbsp;

German concern

In Germany on Wednesday, the chief federal prosecutor&#39;s office said that it would review the WikiLeaks documents because some suggested that the CIA ran a hacking hub from the US&nbsp;consulate in Frankfurt.

&quot;We will initiate an investigation if we see evidence of concrete criminal acts or specific perpetrators,&quot; a spokesman for the federal prosecutor&#39;s office told Reuters.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Washington on March 14 for her first meeting with Trump, who has sharply criticized Berlin for everything from its trade policy to what he considers inadequate levels of military spending.

The WikiLeaks documents may also complicate intelligence ties that have just begun to recover after a series of scandals, including news in 2013 that the US&nbsp;National Security Agency had bugged Merkel&#39;s cellphone. The Frankfurt consulate was investigated by German lawmakers after that incident.

Merkel told lawmakers last month she did not know how closely Germany&#39;s spies cooperated with their US&nbsp;counterparts until 2015 when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the BND spy agency had for years passed on information to the NSA about European companies and politicians.

Germany reduced the level of cooperation with the NSA after those revelations.

US&nbsp;officials have acknowledged that the consulate in Frankfurt is home to a CIA base. A facility adjacent to the city&rsquo;s airport and the Rhein-Main Air Base has for many years been home to the CIA&rsquo;s &ldquo;Tefran&rdquo; station, a US&nbsp;centre for collecting intelligence on Iranian activities in Europe, maintaining surveillance on Iranian officials and targeting potential defectors working in Iran&rsquo;s nuclear weapons program.

Foreign ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer told a regular government news conference that Germany took the issue seriously, but more work needed to be done to verify the authenticity of the documents. Berlin was in close touch with Washington about the case and such matters generally, he said.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany&#39;s domestic intelligence agency had the job of uncovering espionage activities in Germany, and carried out its work comprehensively.

WikiLeaks reported that CIA employees had been given diplomatic passports and State Department identities to carry out their work in Frankfurt, focused on targets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The documents included advice for CIA experts about life in Germany, noting that shops are closed on Sundays, and to have &quot;your cover-for-action story down pat&quot; when they were asked by German authorities when entering the country.

(Reuters)

WikiLeaks had detailed how CIA hackers could get into iPhones and Android software devices to capture text and voice messages

CIA contractors likely breached security and handed over documents about the agency's use of hacking tools to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, US intelligence and law enforcement officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity said intelligence agencies have been aware since the end of last year of the breach, which led to WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages on Tuesday. According to the documents, Central Intelligence Agency hackers could get into Apple Inc iPhones, devices running Google's Android software and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software. The White House said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump was "extremely concerned" about the CIA security breach that led to the WikiLeaks release. "Anybody who leaks classified information will be held to the highest degree of law," spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters. The two officials told Reuters they believed the published documents about CIA hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016 were authentic. One of the officials with knowledge of the investigation said companies that are contractors for the CIA have been checking to see which of their employees had access to the material that WikiLeaks published, and then going over their computer logs, emails and other communications for any evidence of who might be responsible. On Tuesday in a press release, WikiLeaks itself said the CIA had "lost control" of an archive of hacking methods and it appeared to have been circulated "among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive." A US government source familiar with the matter said it would be normal for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA both to open investigations into such leaks. US officials previously have confirmed that prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia for years have been conducting a federal grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks and its personnel. A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to comment on the possibility of that probe being expanded. It is not clear if the investigation of the latest CIA leaks is part of the probe. Some cyber security experts and technology companies have criticized the government for opting to exploit rather than disclose software vulnerabilities, though an interagency review process set up under former President Barack Obama was intended to err on the side of disclosure. Those concerns would grow if US authorities did not notify companies that CIA documents describing various hacking techniques had been compromised. Apple, Alphabet Inc's, Google, Cisco Systems Inc and Oracle Corp did not immediately respond when asked if they were notified of a CIA breach before WikiLeaks made its files public. At Apple, none of the vulnerabilities described in the documents provoked a panic, though analysis was continuing, according to a person who spoke with engineers there. Larger number of contractors One reason the investigation is focused on a potential leak by contractors rather than for example a hack by Russian intelligence, another official said, is that so far there is no evidence that Russian intelligence agencies tried to exploit any of the leaked material before it was published. One European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the WikiLeaks material could in fact lead to closer cooperation between European intelligence agencies and US counterparts, which share concerns about Russian intelligence operations. US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of seeking to tilt last year's US presidential election in Trump's favour, including by hacking into Democratic Party emails. Moscow has denied the allegation. One major security problem was that the number of contractors with access to information with the highest secrecy classification has "exploded" because of federal budget constraints, the first US official said. US intelligence agencies have been unable to hire additional permanent staff needed to keep pace with technological advances such as the "internet of things" that connects cars, home security and heating systems and other devices to computer networks, or to pay salaries competitive with the private sector, the official said. Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents. On Tuesday, several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials appeared to be legitimate. A person familiar with WikiLeaks’ activities said the group has had the CIA hacking material for months, and that the release of the material was in the works "for a long time". Both US Senate and US House of Representatives intelligence committees have either opened or are expected to open inquiries into the CIA breach, congressional officials said. German concern In Germany on Wednesday, the chief federal prosecutor's office said that it would review the WikiLeaks documents because some suggested that the CIA ran a hacking hub from the US consulate in Frankfurt. "We will initiate an investigation if we see evidence of concrete criminal acts or specific perpetrators," a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office told Reuters. Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Washington on March 14 for her first meeting with Trump, who has sharply criticized Berlin for everything from its trade policy to what he considers inadequate levels of military spending. The WikiLeaks documents may also complicate intelligence ties that have just begun to recover after a series of scandals, including news in 2013 that the US National Security Agency had bugged Merkel's cellphone. The Frankfurt consulate was investigated by German lawmakers after that incident. Merkel told lawmakers last month she did not know how closely Germany's spies cooperated with their US counterparts until 2015 when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the BND spy agency had for years passed on information to the NSA about European companies and politicians. Germany reduced the level of cooperation with the NSA after those revelations. US officials have acknowledged that the consulate in Frankfurt is home to a CIA base. A facility adjacent to the city’s airport and the Rhein-Main Air Base has for many years been home to the CIA’s “Tefran” station, a US centre for collecting intelligence on Iranian activities in Europe, maintaining surveillance on Iranian officials and targeting potential defectors working in Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Foreign ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer told a regular government news conference that Germany took the issue seriously, but more work needed to be done to verify the authenticity of the documents. Berlin was in close touch with Washington about the case and such matters generally, he said. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany's domestic intelligence agency had the job of uncovering espionage activities in Germany, and carried out its work comprehensively. WikiLeaks reported that CIA employees had been given diplomatic passports and State Department identities to carry out their work in Frankfurt, focused on targets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The documents included advice for CIA experts about life in Germany, noting that shops are closed on Sundays, and to have "your cover-for-action story down pat" when they were asked by German authorities when entering the country. (Reuters)

CIA contractors may have helped WikiLeaks in latest release: US

WikiLeaks on Tuesday published what it said were thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used over several years, renewing concerns about the security of consumer electronics and embarrassing the&nbsp;US&nbsp;intelligence agency.

The discussion transcripts showed that CIA hackers could get into Apple Inc&nbsp;iPhones, Google Inc&nbsp;Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software.

Cyber security experts disagreed about the extent of the fallout from the data dump, but said a lot would depend on whether WikiLeaks followed through on a threat to publish the actual hacking tools that could do damage.

Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials, dated between 2013 and 2016, appeared to be legitimate.

&nbsp;

Recent US-Russia context

This comes at a time when President Donald Trump is in a battle with the US spy agencies, who he has likened to &quot;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/15/john-brennan-trump-nazi-germany-russia" target="_blank">Nazi Germany</a>&quot;,&nbsp;who are investigating him for ties to Russia. Trump has claimed, without citing any evidence, that he was wiretapped in Trump Tower before the election.&nbsp;

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Like to remind that I&#39;ve been calling out Wikileaks as a Kremlin front since mid-2013. Took epic shit for speaking truth. Believe me now?
&mdash; John Schindler (@20committee) <a href="https://twitter.com/20committee/status/839143945871441920">March 7, 2017</a></blockquote>
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US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have said that WikiLeaks has ties to Russia&#39;s security services. During the 2016 US&nbsp;presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published internal emails of top Democratic Party officials, which the agencies said were hacked by Moscow as part of a coordinated influence campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency.

WikiLeaks has denied ties to Russian spy agencies.

Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign, often citing hacked emails it published to bolster his attacks on Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks&#39; dump about the CIA was released&nbsp;the same day&nbsp;it came to light that <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-personally-met-with-russian-ambassador-during-campaign-cc59ae305032#.l38j375zb" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> himself met with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, on April 27, before a major foreign policy Speech. Trump has repeatedly&nbsp;claimed that neither he nor anyone on his campaign had contact with Russian officials.&nbsp;Four other members of his administration talked to Russian officials.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Back to the hack

A longtime intelligence contractor with expertise in US&nbsp;hacking tools told Reuters the documents included correct &quot;cover&quot; terms describing active cyber programs.

Among the most noteworthy WikiLeaks claims is that the Central Intelligence Agency, in partnership with other US&nbsp;and foreign agencies, has been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.

The files did not indicate the actual encryption of Signal or other secure messaging apps had been compromised.

The information in what WikiLeaks said were 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments appears to represent the latest breach in recent years of classified material from US&nbsp;intelligence agencies.

Security experts differed over how much the disclosures could damage US&nbsp;cyber espionage. Many said that, while harmful, they do not compare to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden&#39;s revelations in 2013 of mass NSA data collection.

&quot;This is a big dump about extremely sophisticated tools that can be used to target individual user devices...I haven&rsquo;t yet come across the mass exploiting of mobile devices,&quot; said Tarah Wheeler, senior director of engineering and principal security advocate for Symantec.

Stuart McClure, CEO of Cylance, an Irvine, California, cyber security firm, said that one of the most significant disclosures shows how CIA hackers cover their tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting they are from Russia, China and Iran rather than the United States.

Other revelations show how the CIA took advantage of vulnerabilities that are known, if not widely publicised.

In one case, the documents say, US&nbsp;and British personnel, under a program known as Weeping Angel, developed ways to take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room.

The CIA and White House declined comment. &quot;We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,&quot; CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement.

Google declined to comment on the purported hacking of its Android platform, but said it was investigating the matter.

Snowden on Twitter said the files amount to the first public evidence that the US&nbsp;government secretly buys software to exploit technology, referring to a table published by WikiLeaks that appeared to list various Apple iOS flaws purchased by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Apple Inc&nbsp;did not respond to a request for comment.

The documents refer to means for accessing phones directly in order to catch messages before they are protected by end-to-end encryption tools like Signal.

Signal inventor Moxie Marlinspike said he took that as &quot;confirmation that what we&rsquo;re doing is working&quot;. Signal and the like are &quot;pushing intelligence agencies from a world of undetectable mass surveillance to a world where they have to use expensive, high-risk, extremely targeted attacks&quot;.

&nbsp;

CIA cyber programs

The CIA in recent years underwent a restructuring to focus more on cyber warfare to keep pace with the increasing digital sophistication of foreign adversaries. The spy agency is prohibited by law from collecting intelligence that details domestic activities of Americans and is generally restricted in how it may gather any US&nbsp;data for counterintelligence purposes.

The documents published Tuesday appeared to supply specific details to what has been long-known in the abstract: US&nbsp;intelligence agencies, like their allies and adversaries, are constantly working to discover and exploit flaws in any manner of technology products.

Unlike the Snowden leaks, which revealed the NSA was secretly collecting details of telephone calls by ordinary Americans, the new WikiLeaks material did not appear to contain material that would fundamentally change what is publicly known about cyber espionage.

WikiLeaks, led by Julian Assange, said its publication of the documents on the hacking tools was the first in a series of releases drawing from a data set that includes several hundred million lines of code and includes the CIA&#39;s &quot;entire hacking capacity&quot;.

The documents only include snippets of computer code, not the full programs that would be needed to conduct cyber exploits.

WikiLeaks said it was refraining from disclosing usable code from CIA&#39;s cyber arsenal &quot;until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA&rsquo;s program and how such &lsquo;weapons&rsquo; should be analysed, disarmed and published&quot;.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that the documents showed that the CIA hoarded serious security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public, as called for under a process established by President Barack Obama.

Rob Knake, a former official who dealt with the issue under Obama, said he had not seen evidence in what was published to support that conclusion.

The process &quot;is not a policy of unilateral disarmament in cyberspace. The mere fact that the CIA may have exploited zero-day [previously undisclosed] vulnerabilities should not surprise anyone,&quot; said Knake, now at the Council on Foreign Relations.

US&nbsp;officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not know where WikiLeaks might have obtained the material.

In a press release, the group said, &quot;The archive appears to have been circulated among former US&nbsp;government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive&quot;.

US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have suffered a series of security breaches, including Snowden&#39;s.

In 2010, US&nbsp;military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to Wikileaks.

Last month, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin was indicted on charges of taking highly sensitive government materials over a course of 20 years, storing the secrets in his home.

(WION with inputs from Reuters)

This WikiLeaks dump embarrasses US intelligence at a time Trump is at war with them. Some US intel think WikiLeaks is a Russian front

WikiLeaks on Tuesday published what it said were thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used over several years, renewing concerns about the security of consumer electronics and embarrassing the US intelligence agency. The discussion transcripts showed that CIA hackers could get into Apple Inc iPhones, Google Inc Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software. Cyber security experts disagreed about the extent of the fallout from the data dump, but said a lot would depend on whether WikiLeaks followed through on a threat to publish the actual hacking tools that could do damage. Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials, dated between 2013 and 2016, appeared to be legitimate. Recent US-Russia context This comes at a time when President Donald Trump is in a battle with the US spy agencies, who he has likened to "Nazi Germany", who are investigating him for ties to Russia. Trump has claimed, without citing any evidence, that he was wiretapped in Trump Tower before the election. Like to remind that I've been calling out Wikileaks as a Kremlin front since mid-2013. Took epic shit for speaking truth. Believe me now? — John Schindler (@20committee) March 7, 2017 × US intelligence agencies have said that WikiLeaks has ties to Russia's security services. During the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published internal emails of top Democratic Party officials, which the agencies said were hacked by Moscow as part of a coordinated influence campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency. WikiLeaks has denied ties to Russian spy agencies. Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign, often citing hacked emails it published to bolster his attacks on Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks' dump about the CIA was released the same day it came to light that Donald Trump himself met with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, on April 27, before a major foreign policy Speech. Trump has repeatedly claimed that neither he nor anyone on his campaign had contact with Russian officials. Four other members of his administration talked to Russian officials. Back to the hack A longtime intelligence contractor with expertise in US hacking tools told Reuters the documents included correct "cover" terms describing active cyber programs. Among the most noteworthy WikiLeaks claims is that the Central Intelligence Agency, in partnership with other US and foreign agencies, has been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal. The files did not indicate the actual encryption of Signal or other secure messaging apps had been compromised. The information in what WikiLeaks said were 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments appears to represent the latest breach in recent years of classified material from US intelligence agencies. Security experts differed over how much the disclosures could damage US cyber espionage. Many said that, while harmful, they do not compare to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013 of mass NSA data collection. "This is a big dump about extremely sophisticated tools that can be used to target individual user devices...I haven’t yet come across the mass exploiting of mobile devices," said Tarah Wheeler, senior director of engineering and principal security advocate for Symantec. Stuart McClure, CEO of Cylance, an Irvine, California, cyber security firm, said that one of the most significant disclosures shows how CIA hackers cover their tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting they are from Russia, China and Iran rather than the United States. Other revelations show how the CIA took advantage of vulnerabilities that are known, if not widely publicised. In one case, the documents say, US and British personnel, under a program known as Weeping Angel, developed ways to take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room. The CIA and White House declined comment. "We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement. Google declined to comment on the purported hacking of its Android platform, but said it was investigating the matter. Snowden on Twitter said the files amount to the first public evidence that the US government secretly buys software to exploit technology, referring to a table published by WikiLeaks that appeared to list various Apple iOS flaws purchased by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Apple Inc did not respond to a request for comment. The documents refer to means for accessing phones directly in order to catch messages before they are protected by end-to-end encryption tools like Signal. Signal inventor Moxie Marlinspike said he took that as "confirmation that what we’re doing is working". Signal and the like are "pushing intelligence agencies from a world of undetectable mass surveillance to a world where they have to use expensive, high-risk, extremely targeted attacks". CIA cyber programs The CIA in recent years underwent a restructuring to focus more on cyber warfare to keep pace with the increasing digital sophistication of foreign adversaries. The spy agency is prohibited by law from collecting intelligence that details domestic activities of Americans and is generally restricted in how it may gather any US data for counterintelligence purposes. The documents published Tuesday appeared to supply specific details to what has been long-known in the abstract: US intelligence agencies, like their allies and adversaries, are constantly working to discover and exploit flaws in any manner of technology products. Unlike the Snowden leaks, which revealed the NSA was secretly collecting details of telephone calls by ordinary Americans, the new WikiLeaks material did not appear to contain material that would fundamentally change what is publicly known about cyber espionage. WikiLeaks, led by Julian Assange, said its publication of the documents on the hacking tools was the first in a series of releases drawing from a data set that includes several hundred million lines of code and includes the CIA's "entire hacking capacity". The documents only include snippets of computer code, not the full programs that would be needed to conduct cyber exploits. WikiLeaks said it was refraining from disclosing usable code from CIA's cyber arsenal "until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such ‘weapons’ should be analysed, disarmed and published". WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that the documents showed that the CIA hoarded serious security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public, as called for under a process established by President Barack Obama. Rob Knake, a former official who dealt with the issue under Obama, said he had not seen evidence in what was published to support that conclusion. The process "is not a policy of unilateral disarmament in cyberspace. The mere fact that the CIA may have exploited zero-day [previously undisclosed] vulnerabilities should not surprise anyone," said Knake, now at the Council on Foreign Relations. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not know where WikiLeaks might have obtained the material. In a press release, the group said, "The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive". US intelligence agencies have suffered a series of security breaches, including Snowden's. In 2010, US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to Wikileaks. Last month, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin was indicted on charges of taking highly sensitive government materials over a course of 20 years, storing the secrets in his home. (WION with inputs from Reuters)

WikiLeaks says it releases files proving CIA can spy on all iPhones, Androids

Trump was not the only one&nbsp;to have a Twitter meltdown this weekend.

Trump loyalist and former top adviser Roger Stone claimed on Twitter that he had a&nbsp;back channel to&nbsp;work with Julian Assange at Wikileaks&nbsp;to spread damaging leaked Clinton emails.

US intelligence has unanimously said that Russia interfered in the US election in what it called a &quot;multifaceted campaign&quot; of&nbsp;&quot;cyber espionage&quot;, and that&nbsp;Clinton&#39;s emails were obtained&nbsp;by Russian hackers.

Stone&#39;s claim that he worked with Assange&nbsp;to&nbsp;spread Clinton&#39;s emails comes&nbsp;amid growing reports of Trump staffers meeting&nbsp;with Russian officials, then&nbsp;lying about it.

Here is the screengrabbed Tweet that Stone deleted.

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Here&#39;s the screengrab of Roger Stone admitting the Trump campaign colluded with Asange and Wikileaks (I know, real stunner) <a href="https://t.co/TcBrMrSTig">pic.twitter.com/TcBrMrSTig</a>
&mdash; Kriston Capps (@kristoncapps) <a href="https://twitter.com/kristoncapps/status/838259900627156992">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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But he responded to the claim that he did any wrongdoing.&nbsp;

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Attention MSM Losers!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LeftistSpasm?src=hash">#LeftistSpasm</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FakeNews?src=hash">#FakeNews</a> <a href="https://t.co/iKTT5buhlq">pic.twitter.com/iKTT5buhlq</a>
&mdash; Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/838487222454272002">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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While the tone of Stone&#39;s&nbsp;Tweet is defiant, claiming he didn&#39;t hide anything, actually there is video footage of Stone from 2016&nbsp;saying, contrary to the claim in his deleted Tweet, that he did have direct communication&nbsp;with Assange.

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Listen to &quot;long time Trump advisor&quot; Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: <a href="https://t.co/EclA0jpXIU">pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU</a>
&mdash; justin kanew (@justin_kanew) <a href="https://twitter.com/justin_kanew/status/838485426050641920">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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At issue in the investigation into Trump-Russia, conducted by six different US intelligence agencies,&nbsp;is whether anyone in Trump&#39;s campaign actively worked with the Russians against their Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Colluding with a foreign and hostile government to sabotage a national election is illegal.

<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-aides-russians-campaign/index.html" target="_blank">CNN </a>reported that Trump staffers were in &quot;constant touch&quot; with Russian officials during the election campaign. The subject of these talks has not been disclosed publicly.

Officials emphasised that it is not unusual for campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments to communicate, but that these communications stood out for their frequency, and for the level of Trump advisers involved.

&nbsp;

Vulgar abuse

Yesterday, Roger Stone also abused&nbsp;the same&nbsp;female&nbsp;citizen journalist, calling her a &quot;stupid, ignorant, ugly bitch&quot; in a now-deleted Tweet.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling denounced the attack in a screen grab:

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This man is an advisor to the leader of the free world. This guy, right here. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rogerstone?src=hash">#rogerstone</a> <a href="https://t.co/brxqZAfw09">pic.twitter.com/brxqZAfw09</a>
&mdash; J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/838294536170389504">March 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Stone also abused Republican strategist Ana Navarro, calling her&nbsp;&quot;fat and stupid&quot;.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Deflection&nbsp;

Stone&#39;s Twitter meltdown&nbsp;comes as Trump&#39;s campaign is trying hard to deflect attention from their various connections to Russia.

US Attorney General and Trump loyalist Jeff Sessions just recused himself from the investigation into Trump-Russia after it became known that he met with the Russian ambassador twice, and lied about it under oath.

Before that, Trump&#39;s pick to head national security Michael Flynn resigned after it became known that he too met the Russian ambassador and lied about it.&nbsp;

Trump&#39;s son-in-law <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jared-kushner-donald-trump-russia-ambassador-sergey-kislyak-meeting-michael-flynn-white-house-jeff-a7609166.html" target="_blank">Jared Kushner</a>, who is a White House adviser,&nbsp;met&nbsp;the Russian ambassador in Trump Tower. No cameras&nbsp;captured Kislyak entering the building, suggesting he was ushered in a <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/03/trump-white-house-downplay-failure-reveal-russian-ambassadors-smuggled-visit-trump-tower.html" target="_blank">back door.</a>&nbsp;A White House spokesman denied this was a secret meeting.

Paul Manafort and Trump&#39;s long-time&nbsp;lawyer Michael Cohen also met with Russian officials and failed to disclose it.

&nbsp;

This weekend former Republican adviser <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-russia-republican-pro-putin-ukraine-stance-rnc-ambassador-kislyak-meeting-a7610621.html" target="_blank">JD Gordon</a>&nbsp;claimed that&nbsp;a pro-Russia change in language to the GOP platform came after&nbsp;the Republican convention in Cleveland of July 2016, and was especially ordered to align with Trump&#39;s own personal views. Gordon claimed he and Carter Page, then a Trump adviser who resigned amid his connections to Russia, also <a href="http://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/3/14789354/russian-ambassador-trump-sergey-kislyak" target="_blank">met </a>Kislyak.

The July convention in Cleveland&nbsp;took place shortly after Sessions met the Russian ambassador. In 2015, Sessions was staunchly anti-Russia. Sessions&nbsp;pro-Russia views seem to have set in&nbsp;after meeting Kislyak.

US intelligence also says that the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak&nbsp;is also Russia&#39;s top spy and spy-recruiter in Washington. The Kremlin has officially <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/russia-kislyak-spy-claim-sessions/" target="_blank">denied </a>this claim.

(WION)

Roger Stone's meltdown came as US intelligence investigates Russia's interference in the US election and Trump's connections to Russia

Trump was not the only one to have a Twitter meltdown this weekend. Trump loyalist and former top adviser Roger Stone claimed on Twitter that he had a back channel to work with Julian Assange at Wikileaks to spread damaging leaked Clinton emails. US intelligence has unanimously said that Russia interfered in the US election in what it called a "multifaceted campaign" of "cyber espionage", and that Clinton's emails were obtained by Russian hackers. Stone's claim that he worked with Assange to spread Clinton's emails comes amid growing reports of Trump staffers meeting with Russian officials, then lying about it. Here is the screengrabbed Tweet that Stone deleted. Here's the screengrab of Roger Stone admitting the Trump campaign colluded with Asange and Wikileaks (I know, real stunner) pic.twitter.com/TcBrMrSTig — Kriston Capps (@kristoncapps) March 5, 2017 × But he responded to the claim that he did any wrongdoing. Attention MSM Losers!#LeftistSpasm#FakeNews pic.twitter.com/iKTT5buhlq — Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) March 5, 2017 × While the tone of Stone's Tweet is defiant, claiming he didn't hide anything, actually there is video footage of Stone from 2016 saying, contrary to the claim in his deleted Tweet, that he did have direct communication with Assange. Listen to "long time Trump advisor" Roger Stone here... sure seems to know what Assange (Russia) had in store: pic.twitter.com/EclA0jpXIU — justin kanew (@justin_kanew) March 5, 2017 × At issue in the investigation into Trump-Russia, conducted by six different US intelligence agencies, is whether anyone in Trump's campaign actively worked with the Russians against their Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Colluding with a foreign and hostile government to sabotage a national election is illegal. CNN reported that Trump staffers were in "constant touch" with Russian officials during the election campaign. The subject of these talks has not been disclosed publicly. Officials emphasised that it is not unusual for campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments to communicate, but that these communications stood out for their frequency, and for the level of Trump advisers involved. Vulgar abuse Yesterday, Roger Stone also abused the same female citizen journalist, calling her a "stupid, ignorant, ugly bitch" in a now-deleted Tweet. Harry Potter author JK Rowling denounced the attack in a screen grab: This man is an advisor to the leader of the free world. This guy, right here. #rogerstone pic.twitter.com/brxqZAfw09 — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 5, 2017 × Stone also abused Republican strategist Ana Navarro, calling her "fat and stupid". Deflection Stone's Twitter meltdown comes as Trump's campaign is trying hard to deflect attention from their various connections to Russia. US Attorney General and Trump loyalist Jeff Sessions just recused himself from the investigation into Trump-Russia after it became known that he met with the Russian ambassador twice, and lied about it under oath. Before that, Trump's pick to head national security Michael Flynn resigned after it became known that he too met the Russian ambassador and lied about it. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is a White House adviser, met the Russian ambassador in Trump Tower. No cameras captured Kislyak entering the building, suggesting he was ushered in a back door. A White House spokesman denied this was a secret meeting. Paul Manafort and Trump's long-time lawyer Michael Cohen also met with Russian officials and failed to disclose it. This weekend former Republican adviser JD Gordon claimed that a pro-Russia change in language to the GOP platform came after the Republican convention in Cleveland of July 2016, and was especially ordered to align with Trump's own personal views. Gordon claimed he and Carter Page, then a Trump adviser who resigned amid his connections to Russia, also met Kislyak. The July convention in Cleveland took place shortly after Sessions met the Russian ambassador. In 2015, Sessions was staunchly anti-Russia. Sessions pro-Russia views seem to have set in after meeting Kislyak. US intelligence also says that the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak is also Russia's top spy and spy-recruiter in Washington. The Kremlin has officially denied this claim. (WION)

Trump ally says he worked with Assange pre-election to spread Clinton emails in abusive Twitter tirade

Republicans on Saturday rejected reports of a secret CIA assessment finding that Russia sought to tip the US presidential election in Donald Trump&#39;s favor, as a Democratic Senate leader called for an investigation.

&quot;The intelligence is wrong,&quot; Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told CNN. &quot;It didn&#39;t happen.&quot;

He was referring to a New York Times report saying US intelligence agencies had &quot;high confidence&quot; that Russian hackers infiltrated the Republican National Committee&#39;s computer systems as well as those of Democratic Party organisations, but released information stolen only from the Democrats.

News about the CIA report, first reported by The Washington Post on Friday, drew an extraordinary rebuke from the president-elect&#39;s camp.

&quot;These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,&quot; Trump&#39;s transition team said, launching a broadside against the spy agency.

Trump said the election was over and that it&#39;s &quot;now time to move on and &#39;Make America Great Again.&#39;&quot;

However, senator Chuck Schumer, set to become Democratic minority leader in January, called for a congressional probe into the matter.

&quot;That any country could be meddling in our elections should shake both political parties to their core,&quot; he said Saturday.&nbsp;

&quot;It&#39;s imperative that our intelligence community turns over any relevant information so that Congress can conduct a full investigation.&quot;

The debate simmered as US media reported that ExxonMobil President and CEO Rex Tillerson -- a businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- is Trump&#39;s likely pick for secretary of state.

Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the idea of Tillerson as top diplomat as &quot;alarming and absurd.&quot;&nbsp;

&quot;With Rex Tillerson as our Secretary of State, the Trump administration would be guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice in the president&#39;s cabinet guiding our nation&#39;s foreign policy,&quot; he said in a statement.

&#39;Help Trump get elected&#39;

The reports of Russian interference in the White House vote follow President Barack Obama&#39;s order for a review of all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle.

According to The Post, individuals with connections to Moscow provided anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks with emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton&#39;s campaign chief, and others.

WikiLeaks steadily released those emails in the months before the election, damaging Clinton&#39;s White House run.

&quot;It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia&#39;s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,&quot; a US official briefed on an intelligence presentation to key senators told the newspaper. &quot;That&#39;s the consensus view.&quot;

CIA agents told the lawmakers it was &quot;quite clear&quot; that electing Trump was Russia&#39;s goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post.

Russian hackers did not limit their hits to the Democrats, The New York Times reported.

&quot;We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents&quot; from the Republican organization, one senior administration official told The Times.

It is unclear however when Russia started supporting Trump, &quot;and many intelligence officials -- and former officials in Mrs Clinton&#39;s campaign -- believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote,&quot; the newspaper said.

Question marks

The CIA&#39;s assessment falls short of a formal US assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies, The Post said.

Intelligence agents cannot prove that Russian officials directed the identified individuals to give WikiLeaks the hacked Democratic emails.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied links with Russia&#39;s government.

California Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team, said he &quot;does not believe the evidence shows that the Russians interfered in the elections in order to help Trump,&quot; a spokesman told AFP.

However Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the same committee, said &quot;the integrity of our elections is hindered&quot; when Trump and his transition team &quot;minimize or dismiss the intelligence assessments.&quot;

For Schiff, &quot;one would also have to be willfully blind not to see that these Russian actions were uniformly damaging to Secretary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump.&quot;

Calls for investigations

Democrats in Congress called on US intelligence agencies to provide all information about Russian hacking and disinformation in the election.

The current minority leader, Senator Harry Reid, even accused FBI Director James Comey of knowing about Russian hacking into the Republican servers &quot;for a long time.&quot;

&quot;But he, Comey, who&#39;s a Republican, refused to divulge this information about Russia interfering with the presidential election,&quot; Reid told MSNBC, accusing the FBI director of being &quot;the new J. Edgar Hoover.&quot;

&quot;I think he should be investigated,&quot; he added.

Clinton has blamed Comey for her loss, saying his decision during the campaign&#39;s final weeks to re-open a probe into her email use as secretary of state broke her momentum.

Previous intelligence reports have accused Russia of seeking to undermine the US election, without saying if Moscow favored any candidate.

In an interview Wednesday in Time magazine, Trump was asked if the intelligence was politicized. &quot;I think so,&quot; he said.

&quot;I don&#39;t believe they interfered,&quot; he said. &quot;It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.&quot;

(AFP)

The Washington Post reported that a secret CIA assessment found Russia sought to tip the US presidential election in Donald Trump's favour

Republicans on Saturday rejected reports of a secret CIA assessment finding that Russia sought to tip the US presidential election in Donald Trump's favor, as a Democratic Senate leader called for an investigation. "The intelligence is wrong," Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told CNN. "It didn't happen." He was referring to a New York Times report saying US intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that Russian hackers infiltrated the Republican National Committee's computer systems as well as those of Democratic Party organisations, but released information stolen only from the Democrats. News about the CIA report, first reported by The Washington Post on Friday, drew an extraordinary rebuke from the president-elect's camp. "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," Trump's transition team said, launching a broadside against the spy agency. Trump said the election was over and that it's "now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'" However, senator Chuck Schumer, set to become Democratic minority leader in January, called for a congressional probe into the matter. "That any country could be meddling in our elections should shake both political parties to their core," he said Saturday. "It's imperative that our intelligence community turns over any relevant information so that Congress can conduct a full investigation." The debate simmered as US media reported that ExxonMobil President and CEO Rex Tillerson -- a businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- is Trump's likely pick for secretary of state. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the idea of Tillerson as top diplomat as "alarming and absurd." "With Rex Tillerson as our Secretary of State, the Trump administration would be guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice in the president's cabinet guiding our nation's foreign policy," he said in a statement. 'Help Trump get elected' The reports of Russian interference in the White House vote follow President Barack Obama's order for a review of all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle. According to The Post, individuals with connections to Moscow provided anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks with emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, and others. WikiLeaks steadily released those emails in the months before the election, damaging Clinton's White House run. "It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected," a US official briefed on an intelligence presentation to key senators told the newspaper. "That's the consensus view." CIA agents told the lawmakers it was "quite clear" that electing Trump was Russia's goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post. Russian hackers did not limit their hits to the Democrats, The New York Times reported. "We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents" from the Republican organization, one senior administration official told The Times. It is unclear however when Russia started supporting Trump, "and many intelligence officials -- and former officials in Mrs Clinton's campaign -- believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote," the newspaper said. Question marks The CIA's assessment falls short of a formal US assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies, The Post said. Intelligence agents cannot prove that Russian officials directed the identified individuals to give WikiLeaks the hacked Democratic emails. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied links with Russia's government. California Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team, said he "does not believe the evidence shows that the Russians interfered in the elections in order to help Trump," a spokesman told AFP. However Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the same committee, said "the integrity of our elections is hindered" when Trump and his transition team "minimize or dismiss the intelligence assessments." For Schiff, "one would also have to be willfully blind not to see that these Russian actions were uniformly damaging to Secretary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump." Calls for investigations Democrats in Congress called on US intelligence agencies to provide all information about Russian hacking and disinformation in the election. The current minority leader, Senator Harry Reid, even accused FBI Director James Comey of knowing about Russian hacking into the Republican servers "for a long time." "But he, Comey, who's a Republican, refused to divulge this information about Russia interfering with the presidential election," Reid told MSNBC, accusing the FBI director of being "the new J. Edgar Hoover." "I think he should be investigated," he added. Clinton has blamed Comey for her loss, saying his decision during the campaign's final weeks to re-open a probe into her email use as secretary of state broke her momentum. Previous intelligence reports have accused Russia of seeking to undermine the US election, without saying if Moscow favored any candidate. In an interview Wednesday in Time magazine, Trump was asked if the intelligence was politicized. "I think so," he said. "I don't believe they interfered," he said. "It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey." (AFP)

Republicans dismiss reports of Russian help in Trump's victory

Britain&#39;s request to review United Nations&#39; ruling that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained has been rejected, said a statment released in Geneva on Wednesday.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was not changing course as the British request &quot;did not meet the threshold of a review... and (was) thus not admissible&quot;, news agency AFP reported.

Britain had contested the findings, favourable towards Assange, of the UN group working on arbitrary detention published in February.&nbsp;

Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden. He faces rape allegations in the Scandinavian country.

&ldquo;Julian Assange has never been arbitrarily detained by the UK, and is in fact voluntarily avoiding lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorian embassy. The UK continues to have a legal obligation to extradite him to Sweden,&rdquo; UK foreign minister Hugo Swire had said in a statement, The Guardian reported.

The WikiLeaks founder is afraid that Sweden would extradite him to the United States where he would face punishment for leaking classified documents in his website.

The UN panel published its findings on Wednesday.

Assange said in a statement: &quot;Now that all appeals are exhausted I expect that the UK and Sweden will comply with their international obligations and set me free. It is an obvious and grotesque injustice to detain someone for six years who hasn&#39;t even been charged with an offence.&quot;

Earlier in November, he was interrogated by an Ecuadorian prosecutor for two days over the rape allegations on him.

The questions were provided by Swedish officials but the answers were confidential.

A sexual assault probe into Assange was dropped last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired. The Swedish prosecutors, however, still want to question him over the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations.

Assange insists the sexual encounters in question were consensual.

(With inputs from AFP)

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said the British request 'did not meet the threshold of a review and (was) thus not admissible'

Britain's request to review United Nations' ruling that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained has been rejected, said a statment released in Geneva on Wednesday. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was not changing course as the British request "did not meet the threshold of a review... and (was) thus not admissible", news agency AFP reported. Britain had contested the findings, favourable towards Assange, of the UN group working on arbitrary detention published in February. Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden. He faces rape allegations in the Scandinavian country. “Julian Assange has never been arbitrarily detained by the UK, and is in fact voluntarily avoiding lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorian embassy. The UK continues to have a legal obligation to extradite him to Sweden,” UK foreign minister Hugo Swire had said in a statement, The Guardian reported. The WikiLeaks founder is afraid that Sweden would extradite him to the United States where he would face punishment for leaking classified documents in his website. The UN panel published its findings on Wednesday. Assange said in a statement: "Now that all appeals are exhausted I expect that the UK and Sweden will comply with their international obligations and set me free. It is an obvious and grotesque injustice to detain someone for six years who hasn't even been charged with an offence." Earlier in November, he was interrogated by an Ecuadorian prosecutor for two days over the rape allegations on him. The questions were provided by Swedish officials but the answers were confidential. A sexual assault probe into Assange was dropped last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired. The Swedish prosecutors, however, still want to question him over the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations. Assange insists the sexual encounters in question were consensual. (With inputs from AFP)

UN panel rejects Britain's request to review Assange ruling

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to face questioning by prosecutors on Monday at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London over rape allegations made against him.

An Ecuadoran prosecutor, along with Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a Swedish police inspector will quiz him at the embassy, officials said.

Assange has been holed up at the embassy since 2012 after Swedish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant against him. 
&nbsp; 
Two Swedish women, who met Assange in Sweden in 2010, have accused him of rape and sexual assault.

He has said the claims were politically motivated and insists he had only consensual sexual encounters with the women.

A Swedish official source said the questioning was expected to begin at around 1000 GMT. The investigators intend to take a DNA sample, subject to his agreement.

&quot;It&#39;s planned to last a few days,&quot; Assange&#39;s lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP.

Assange, speaking through his lawyer, has said he welcomes the &quot;chance to clear his name&quot; and hopes the investigation will subsequently close.

(WION with inputs from AFP)

He is being questioned over allegations of rape and sexual assault filed by two women who met him during a 2010 trip to Sweden

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to face questioning by prosecutors on Monday at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London over rape allegations made against him. An Ecuadoran prosecutor, along with Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a Swedish police inspector will quiz him at the embassy, officials said. Assange has been holed up at the embassy since 2012 after Swedish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant against him. Two Swedish women, who met Assange in Sweden in 2010, have accused him of rape and sexual assault. He has said the claims were politically motivated and insists he had only consensual sexual encounters with the women. A Swedish official source said the questioning was expected to begin at around 1000 GMT. The investigators intend to take a DNA sample, subject to his agreement. "It's planned to last a few days," Assange's lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP. Assange, speaking through his lawyer, has said he welcomes the "chance to clear his name" and hopes the investigation will subsequently close. (WION with inputs from AFP)

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange faces questioning by prosecutors

Imprisoned transgender soldier Chelsea Manning, who is serving 35 years behind bars for leaking classified US documents, has asked President Barack Obama to reduce her sentence before he leaves office, reports said.

Originally called Bradley, Manning was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Manning, who has already spent half a dozen years in prison, said she is not asking for a pardon and understands that the conviction will stay on her record, according to a statement accompanying the petition, which was published by the New York Times on Sunday.

&quot;The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members,&quot; she said.

Manning, whose suicide attempt last month was her second while in prison, spoke of the hardships she has undergone while serving in the military as a person coming to terms with her gender identity.

The 28-year-old private has repeatedly decried her treatment in the men&#39;s military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where she is appealing her sentence.

While hailed by supporters as a hero for exposing what they see as US abuses in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Manning has been denounced by prosecutors as a traitor who put country and comrades at risk.

Manning&#39;s petition included letters of support from Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1971 as well as journalist Glenn Greenwald and former military commissions chief prosecutor Morris Davis.

Obama has just over than two months left in office before newly elected Donald Trump becomes US president. 
 
(AFP)

Manning, who has already spent six years in prison for leaking classified US documents to Wikileaks, appealed for a reduced sentence

Imprisoned transgender soldier Chelsea Manning, who is serving 35 years behind bars for leaking classified US documents, has asked President Barack Obama to reduce her sentence before he leaves office, reports said. Originally called Bradley, Manning was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning, who has already spent half a dozen years in prison, said she is not asking for a pardon and understands that the conviction will stay on her record, according to a statement accompanying the petition, which was published by the New York Times on Sunday. "The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members," she said. Manning, whose suicide attempt last month was her second while in prison, spoke of the hardships she has undergone while serving in the military as a person coming to terms with her gender identity. The 28-year-old private has repeatedly decried her treatment in the men's military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where she is appealing her sentence. While hailed by supporters as a hero for exposing what they see as US abuses in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Manning has been denounced by prosecutors as a traitor who put country and comrades at risk. Manning's petition included letters of support from Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1971 as well as journalist Glenn Greenwald and former military commissions chief prosecutor Morris Davis. Obama has just over than two months left in office before newly elected Donald Trump becomes US president. (AFP)

Chelsea Manning asks US President Obama for reduced sentence: Report

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