Following his interview with Sean Hannity Tuesday night, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange found himself the headliner across cable news Wednesday. Much of the coverage was about something Pres.-elect Trump tweeted (more on that in a moment) as well as looking ahead to today’s Senate hearings on Russian hacking.
But a segment on CNN caught the attention, and a threat, from Wikileaks. Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd called Assange “a pedophile who lives in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.”
Not long after, Wikileaks sent this tweet: “We have issued instructions to sue CNN for defamation. Unless within 48h they air a one hour expose of the plot.”
By early afternoon, CNN had issued this statement:
We've deleted a tweet that included a video clip from New Day earlier this morning. Here's our statement: pic.twitter.com/qJqTtzy69T
— New Day (@NewDay) January 4, 2017
As for Pres.-elect Trump’s part in all of this, on Wednesday morning he tweeted, “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”
That, as his tweets often do, turned into multiple cable news segments across CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. This morning Trump responded to the coverage;
The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange – wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017
to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against "Intelligence" when in fact I am a big fan!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017