WikiLeaks rejected documents on Russia during 2016 election: report

WikiLeaks reportedly refused a massive cache of documents concerning the Russian government during the 2016 election season.

“We had several leaks sent to WikiLeaks, including the Russian hack. It would have exposed Russian activities and shown WikiLeaks was not controlled by Russian security services,” an unidentified source told Foreign Policy in a report published Thursday.

WikLeaks published vast archives of emails related to the Hillary Clinton campaign in the months leading up to the election. U.S. intelligence agencies believe those emails were stolen by hackers from their Russian counterparts in an effort to help elect President Trump.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denies that the documents came from Russia. But the claim has fueled suspicion that he knowingly participated in a Russian intelligence operation.

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“Many WikiLeaks staff and volunteers or their families suffered at the hands of Russian corruption and cruelty, we were sure Wikileaks would release it,” the source told Foreign Policy. “Assange gave excuse after excuse.”

The documents allegedly totaled 68 gigabytes of data, more than half of which had never been previously released. The remainder had been released by news outlets in 2014 and concerned military operations in the Ukraine.

Foreign Policy obtained the WikiLeaks half of a chat log discussing its decision to reject the documents.

“As far as we recall these are already public,” it said.  

WikiLeaks responded via Twitter to the Thursday report: “WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin.”

The same source that offered the Russia archive also offered WikiLeaks documents from an American security company. 

WikiLeaks delayed accepting those documents, citing a lack of timeliness and manpower. 

“Is there an election angle? We’re not doing anything until after the election unless its [sic] fast or election related,” WikiLeaks wrote. “We don’t have the resources.”

Multiple congressional committees, as well as a Justice Department special counsel, are investigating Russian hacking related to last year’s election and any possible collusion with the Trump campaign.