WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he deserves no blame for Hillary Clinton's election loss.
In an interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica, Assange denied that he was seeking to damage Clinton's campaign by publishing hacked emails that reflected poorly on her.
The documents were what Clinton's inner circle was "saying about their own campaign, which the American people read and were very interested to read, and assessed the elements and characters, and then they made a decision," Assange said in the interview, which The Guardian first reported.
"That decision was based on Hillary Clinton's own words, her campaign manager's own words. That's democracy." WikiLeaks released a series of documents harmful to Clinton throughout the campaign, many of which came from hacks of the Democratic National Committee as well as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's personal email.
Assange said in the interview that he has been publishing documents on Clinton “for years” and that the leaks during the campaign were no different.
Assange specifically blasted Clinton for her actions as secretary of State.
He claimed Clinton and “the network around her imprisoned one of our alleged sources for 35 years, Chelsea Manning, tortured her according to the United Nations, in order to implicate me personally.”
He also said Clinton was the “chief proponent” in the war against Libya.
Assange said he was happy with “how much the American public interacted with the material we published.”
The U.S. intelligence community has publicly said Russia was behind the hacks, and a CIA assessment reportedly concluded the Kremlin was specifically trying to help Trump win. Assange has denied the documents came from Russia.
In the interview, he said he had “mixed” feelings about the presidential election, but said a Clinton win would have been a “consolidation of power in the existing ruling class of the United States.”