Fmr. Obama Admin Official Likens Assange to the New York Times and CNN

‘We’re not having a chilling effect on the media and on the press’

BLINKEN: "If he is simply publishing information that happened to come his way, albeit classified, that doesn’t make him a whole heck of a lot different, perhaps, than 'The New York Times' and the Pentagon papers or CNN. But if, on the other hand, he is actually instructing people to try to steal classified information that he can publish, that might be different. But what I would focus on is this with Assange. What we’ve seen in recent months, of course, are reports that he may have colluded and WikiLeaks may have colluded with the Russians to try to influence the election and to put out information that the Russians exfiltrated, got to WikiLeaks and we know what happened after that. That’s where the focus I think should be."

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