[THREAD] While the UK approved the extradition of #WikiLeaks co-founder #JulianAssange to the US, France's far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon promises to naturalize him if he's appointed PM. But Wikileaks played a role in an interference attempt during the previous presidential election 
The #MacronLeaks operation was a coordinated attempt to undermine Macron’s candidacy in the 2017 presidential campaign, with disinformation including forged documents, a hack and a leak of 15 GB of stolen and manipulated data just 2 days before the final round.
And WikiLeaks played a role in it. First, as early as in February 2017, in a Russian newspaper, Assange announced that something was coming, as if he knew (p. 4).
Second, when the stolen and manipulated data was leaked on May 5, 2017, with the aim to compromise Macron just before the vote, it was WikiLeaks that internationalized the spread, with this tweet (p. 12-13):
Third, a few months later, despite the fact that the hack-and-leak operation was then known to be an election interference attempt coming at least partly from the Russian military intelligence (GRU), WikiLeaks published a searchable archive of the leaks (p. 15).
More on the "Macron Leaks Operation" here: atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-resea… @AtlanticCouncil @ACEurope @DFRLab
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