Trump Has Convenient Case of Amnesia About His Past Love of WikiLeaks In Wake of Assange Arrest

During a brief press gaggle in the Oval Office just before a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Donald Trump was asked if he still loves WikiLeaks, as he said during his presidential campaign in 2016. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on Thursday morning on a charge of conspiring to hack into a U.S. government computer that contained classified information.

Trump responded that “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. That’s not my thing…I know nothing really about him, it’s not my deal in life.”

That’s funny, because NBC once counted 145 references Trump made to WikiLeaks before the 2016 election. And that was just in the last 12 days leading up to it.

Trump was perfectly happy to sing WikiLeaks’ praises throughout his presidential campaign whenever the organization released any information embarrassing to Hillary Clinton. When WikiLeaks exposed emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee about Clinton’s campaign in October of 2016, Trump couldn’t get enough of them. “Oh, we love WikiLeaks,” he told a rally crowd in North Carolina.

Trump’s discomfort with WikiLeaks might be due to its role in the Russia investigation. The organization is accused of receiving the stolen DNC emails from Russian intelligence. One tendril of Robert Mueller’s investigation over two years was whether high-ranking members of Trump’s campaign had in any way conspired with WikiLeaks to release those emails to the public to damage Clinton.

This follows a consistent pattern throughout Trump’s life. He loves anyone so long as they are helpful. The minute a person gets in trouble, he can’t distance himself fast enough. Unless it is someone he knows well, such as Roger Stone.

Watch Trump’s comments in the clip up top, via MSNBC.