WikiLeaks Flips Out Over Guardian’s Bombshell Manafort Report: We’ll Bet ‘Editor’s Head’ It’s False
A day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of repeatedly lying to federal investigators in breach of the plea agreement he reached with the feds earlier this year, The Guardian dropped a bombshell that reported Manafort secretly met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the spring of 2016, months before the group released a tranche of hacked Democratic emails.
Immediately following the explosive report, WikiLeaks raged against the paper on Twitter, calling one of the reporters a serial liar while offering up a bet that included decapitation.
Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper's reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor's head that Manafort never met Assange. https://t.co/R2Qn6rLQjn
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 27, 2018
“Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation,” the organization tweeted. “@WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”
They followed that up by saying the story “is going to be one of the most infamous news disasters since Stern published the “Hitler Diaries”.”
This is going to be one of the most infamous news disasters since Stern published the "Hitler Diaries".
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 27, 2018
It would appear that writer that WikiLeaks/Assange is targeting as a fabulist is Luke Harding, one of the two authors of the piece. Harding wrote WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy in 2011 and many other pieces for the Guardian about Assange since. Last year, he wrote the book Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
According to The Guardian, a “well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016.” This was just as Manafort was taking on a key role in Trump’s presidential campaign. The report also claims that Manafort visited with Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2013 and 2015.
