The incomplete and carefully edited DM exchanges between me and a spokesman for WikiLeaks cited by The Atlantic prove conclusively that I had no advance knowledge of the content or source of WikiLeaks disclosures regarding Hillary Clinton.

I had merely confirmed Julian Assange’s public claim that he had information on Hillary Clinton and he would publish it.

The exchange provided to the Atlantic is incomplete and ridiculously out of context.

The true copy of this exchange provided many months ago to the House Intelligence Committee demonstrates I had no ‘collaboration” with WikiLeaks.

Assange himself said in an interview with Amy Goodman that I never tweeted anything he or WikiLeaks hadn’t said or written publicly.

I have never claimed otherwise.

As John Podhoretz of the New York Post said this morning on Morning Joe, even the truncated direct mail exchange obtained and published by the Atlantic clears me, he said it was exculpatory.

To clarify, my mention in a Florida speech of a “back channel to Assange” is merely a reference to confirming a source who told me, consistent with Assange’s public statements, that WikiLeaks did indeed have material embarrassing to Hillary and would publish.

While I initially declined to identify this confirming source to the Committee because I feared professional reprisal against him, I ultimately provided his name to the Committee at the strong urging of Rep. Trey Gowdy.

Randy Credico, then of WBAI in New York confirmed that WikiLeaks did have material devastating to Hillary and WikiLeaks would publish it in October.

Assange himself had said this publicly.

Credico was, as I feared, terminated from his job at the legendary progressive radio station. 

Credico’s claim that this predates his first on-air interview with Assange is irrelevant as Credico had other contacts with WikiLeaks.

To be clear Credico, with whom I have worked in the struggle for drug law reform, never said who confirmed this at WikiLeaks or indicated he knew the source or content of the material.

When Assange scheduled a press conference on October 4th, Credico told me Assange’s lawyers, including Daniel Ellsberg, had urged him to delay the release of the material.

As I consider Assange to be a journalist and WikiLeaks to be a news organization and a repository of information, I reject unproven claims that they are Russian assets thus, there would be nothing illegal about Credico’s communication with them, however limited.

I note that I addressed these issues extensively under oath before the House Intelligence Committee while Mr. Credico elected to assert his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. 

The reporter for The Atlantic, Natasha Bertrand, said in a text message that she was told I gave a screenshot of this exchange in particular to a friend.

This is false, I shared the true exchange only with my lawyers and the Committee. 

The content of the exchange with WikiLeaks shows neither any claim by me to have any information beyond what Assange himself had said publicly and reiterates the statement by WikiLeaks that I had not communicated with them prior to the release of the DNC emails that were both accurate and so damaging to Hillary.

My frustration that whoever is manning the WikiLeaks Twitter direct messages is unaware that I had confirmed Assange’s claim to have Clinton material is also reflected.

That was what I meant when I said WikiLeaks “leaks.” 

All of this is evocative of a similar limited exchange I had over Twitter direct message function with someone claiming to be Guccifer 2.0.

I once believed his public claim that he had hacked the DNC and provided the hacked material to WikiLeaks.

I no longer believe that he did so or that he is, in fact, a Russian asset as I testified for the Committee.

More importantly, the complete exchange which is now public is banal, benign and innocuous and takes place entirely four weeks after WikiLeaks has already published the DNC material proving that charges I colluded with Guccifer 2.0 to obtain those documents and give them to WikiLeaks are false.

This is also true of claims that I knew of the hacking of John Podesta’s e-mail and their publication in advance.

I never claimed anything of the kind.

My prediction on Twitter that “John Podesta’s time in the barrel” would come is based on the January 2016Panama Papers exposure of the Podesta brother’s Russian business dealings with oligarchs close to Putin in banking, gas, and uranium.

There is no evidence that I learned anything about Podesta or his e-mails from Wikileaks.

I had also seen a summary memo regarding the Podesta’s business dealings by Dr. Jerome Corsi – all culled from public sources.

How my Twitter direct messages, which are private, were obtained and leaked to the media raises questions of whether I was hacked or under secret FISA warrant surveillance as reported by The New York Times on January 20th, 2016. 

Several reporters have insisted that I visited and met with Assange in London in 2016.

This too is false.

My passport proves I never left the country in 2016.

I did drop my card off at the Ecuadorian Embassy when I was in London to address the Oxford Union in February of this year, to punk the British media and protest the continued persecution of Julian Assange who I believe is an honest journalist with a stunning record for accuracy. 

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