Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Congressman Meets With WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

REUTERS/Shuji Kajiyama/Pool.

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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Republican California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Wednesday at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, The Daily Caller has learned.

Charles Johnson, a conservative journalist, told TheDC that he arranged the meeting for Assange because the WikiLeaks chief wants to strike a deal with the U.S. so he can stop living in asylum.

Rohrabacher’s spokesman Ken Grubbs told TheDC, “I can confirm that the meeting happened” and said that Johnson was in the meeting.

Johnson said that he arranged for the meeting to happen and that Rohrabacher would be the envoy in charge of bringing back a deal to the Trump White House. Assange has taken asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy since August 2012 after facing sexual assault charges in Sweden.

After TheDC broke the news of the meeting, Rohrabacher put out a statement in which he said Assange “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” The three met for three hours and Rohrabacher is the first congressman to have visited the WikiLeaks founder.

A press release from the California congressman’s office stated that Rohrabacher “plans to divulge more of what he found directly to President Trump.”

CNN reported in April that the Justice Department wants to press charges against Assange for helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, release thousands of classified documents.