WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement on the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London.
“Although Julian Assange may have begun WikiLeaks as an effort to promote transparency, it long ago ceased to be an neutral platform for distributing information. Assange’s abuse of his platform to illegally publish thousands of secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents compromised our national security and deserves consequences.
“As has come to light in recent years, WikiLeaks has continued to play a destructive role by directly interfering in democratic elections and referendums around the world, most troubling of which is WikiLeaks’ collaboration with Russia to directly interfere in the United States presidential election in 2016. The American people should remain concerned that U.S. Intelligence services assessed with high confidence that WikiLeaks had worked directly with Russian military intelligence to undermine our democratic process.
“I commend Ecuadorian President Moreno for holding Julian Assange accountable for his repeated abuse of the asylum granted by Ecuador in 2012. As we await for Mr. Assange to be extradited to the U.S., it is my hope that our justice system holds him to account for his crimes.”
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