Julian Assange Quotes

Espionage and disinformation have a millennia long tradition in statecraft. Both the Soviets and the U. S. interfered with foreign elections during the Cold War.

I don't think anybody can with a straight face say that the Russians did not set out to influence our election, and they did so.

There may be evidence the Russians are trying to tamper with elections. The Russians are trying to infiltrate everything we do, and they've succeeded. They've infiltrated Hollywood, they've infiltrated our universities, probably try to infiltrate elections by who knows what. But the idea that there is evidence that Putin was actively trying to elect Trump, there isn't a morsel of evidence for that, yet it shows up. The truth of the matter is that Putin doesn't care who runs the United States. It doesn't matter to him.

I am talking about strategies that were developed, working with the Trump campaign. I really do believe that much of what you saw coming out of Trump's mouth was a play from Putin's playbook.

Russia has a long history of propaganda and trying to influence various nation's cultures and elections. It's happening. They seem to have stepped up their game.

I think it's safe to say that the Russians are extremely interested in anything that has to do with the U.S. political system. And it's not out of the realm of possibility that they are in many other systems.

I'm talking about the finding in October that is public now of 17 different intelligence agencies saying Russia tried to meddle with our elections.

The two most capable nation state adversaries in the cyber domain are clearly Russia and, of course, China. And I do think Russia poses a huge threat in the way they have used the cyber domain. That, to me, by the way, is the big issue here, is Russian interference in our political process, in our election process. And that is an egregious act by them. And they will continue to do that and I think more aggressively than they have in the past. And I think it's something Americans, all American citizens need to be aware of.

It is preposterous to believe that the Russians had any effect on the outcome of voting in America. It's absurd. There is no evidence.

Russia is an aggressive revisionist power. And they are working - there's evidence they're working to interfere not just in our electoral process, but the electoral processes of Europeans with the same toolkit - money, fake news, propaganda, and what those Soviets used to call aktivniye meropriyatiya, active measures. This is serious.

Even heads of our own security agency said, you know, we need to take a deep breath on this. This really doesn't seem to be happening [that Russians are trying to influence American domestic politics ].

Russian government attacked our election.

The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.

Russian hackers interfered in our elections, and we like penalized a few of them. Whatever they're doing underground, we don't know. No, this is going to be a big issue. And I have to say the Barack Obama - the Donald Trump position is, A, mystifying, but, B, doomed. He has a nice little Vladimir Putin romance going on right now. I think we're going to get out the hankies, because this is going to turn into an ugly relationship within a year or two.

I concern myself with Venezuela. However, some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless.

We know that the Russian's interfered in our election and they did it to benefit President Trump. The intelligence agencies confirmed that.

The day after the Republican convention ended, there was another political bomb that was dropped on the U.S. presidential election [2016] from Russia. The day after the Republican convention ended, right before the Democratic Convention began we got what U.S. intelligence agencies believed to be the next big Russian incursion into our election. We got the first WikiLeaks dump.

In terms of my conversations with [Vladimir] Putin, these are conversations that took place before the election. As I indicated, there has been very clear proof that they have engaged in cyber attacks. This isn't new. It's not unique to Russia. There are a number of states where we've seen low-level cyber attacks and industrial espionage and, you know, other behavior that we think should be out of bounds.

The thing that has disturbed me most about the Russian hacking episode is - and the thing that surprised me most has not been the fact of Russian hacking. The cyber world is full of information gathering, you know, propaganda, et cetera. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government. I think that's something new.

The small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States, to the point where all the United States of America, the greatest nation on Earth, just withdraws from talks about a ceasefire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begin - look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.

The senate intelligence committee announced it would launch a bipartisan investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the election.

Too much under the thumb of the Iranians.

We have the Israelis coming to us for equipment. We can say we can't possibly get the Congress to support a program like this. And they say don't worry about the Congress. We will take care of the Congress. This is somebody from another country, but they can do it. They own, you know, the banks in this country. The newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is.

We repeal sanctions, it tells Russia, go ahead and interfere in our elections and do bad things; it tells China, it tells Iran. That would be terrible.

We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election, and, believe me, they're not doing it to get me elected. They're doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump. Now, maybe because he has praised Putin, maybe because he says he agrees with a lot of what Putin wants to do, maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow, I don't know the reasons.