Thread by @micahflee

The Intercept has obtained DMs from a private Twitter group with @WikiLeaks and its most loyal supporters. It includes:

- A desire for GOP to win the 2016 election
- Trolling
- Anti-semitism
- Rampant misogyny, sexist attacks on feminists
- Transphobia

theintercept.com/2018/02/14/jul…

One of the members of the group, Hazelpress, archived it to leak to the media after news broke that WikiLeaks was secretly talking to @DonaldJTrumpJr, urging Trump to reject election results as rigged if he lost, asking Trump to get Assange an Australian Ambassadorship

The archive spans May 2015 to Nov 2017, includes over 11k DMs, over 10% written by @WikiLeaks. We've published excerpts. documentcloud.org/documents/4378…

We confirmed that the data is authentic by logging into Hazelpress's account (he provided his password) and checking his DMs.

As early as November 2015, @WikiLeaks (presumably @JulianAssange typing) expressed a strong preference for the GOP to win the 2016 election, and later in the campaign explained why he preferred Trump over Clinton

He also says Clinton's "role in the war in Libya is what should bring her down."

BTW, here's a 2011 video of Trump publicly advocating US military intervention in Libya

Many of the messages contain casual sexism, like this "WikiLeaks took Hillary's FUBAR virginity" one, referring to a Clinton email that the State Department released, and WikiLeaks re-published cbsnews.com/media/8-quirky…

(FUBAR = Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition)

Assange denied to the group that former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone was an insider, called him a "bullshitter," said he's "Trying to a) imply that he knows anything b) that he contributed to our hard work"

At one point, Assange went into detail about its thoughts on Russia. Russia is "absolutely terrified"; "US hacks the hell out of it." WikiLeaks thinks Kremlin is "deeply paranoid" of foreign NGOs and "invading 'western' cultural practices, like gays and the internet"

When #PanamaPapers broke, Assange claimed to "have a role" in it (I think he's probably lying).

Someone said they confused people into thinking it was a WikiLeaks release. Assange responded "please don't go around unconfusing"

WikiLeaks taking credit for the work of Panama Papers journalists is especially ironic considering WikiLeaks publicly attacked these journalists after they exposed corruption and fraud in Russia, implicating a close friend Vladimir Putin

https://twitter.com/micahflee/status/950778501270917120

WikiLeaks: "Be the troll you want to see in the world."

This was a common theme in the Twitter group. Here is some WikiLeaks advice about making sock puppet accounts. And here's WikiLeaks asking supporters to troll a BBC journalist.

An AP journalist tweeted an article he co-wrote about WikiLeaks publishing private info causing harm to individuals.

"He's always been a rat," Assange said. "But he's jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue," and instructed people to start trolling him

The ((())) are a neo-nazi meme called "echos" used to identify Jews online. In response, Jews and some allies started echoing their own names to show solidarity.

WikiLeaks used these same echoes in this deleted tweet, suggesting that its critics are Jews: slate.com/blogs/the_slat…

Former WikiLeaks volunteer @jamesrbuk, and former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg, both raised concerns about Assange's relationship with Holocaust denier Israel Shamir, alleging that Assange gave Shamir early access to US diplomatic cables thedailybeast.com/exclusive-form…

And here, someone Assange hired to ghostwrite his memoir (who ended up turning it down) recounts sitting with Assange late at night, listening to his sexist and anti-semitic ramblings lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew…

In Aug 2017, @DanaRohrabacher met with Assange in the embassy to help arrange a deal with Trump dailycaller.com/2017/08/16/exc…

Guess who introduced the two? Neo-Nazi Chuck Johnson. This is the same alt-right Holocaust denier who attended Trump's SOTU address thinkprogress.org/matt-gaetz-cha…

After @freedomofpress found no evidence that the WikiLeaks' financial censorship existed anymore, we voted to stop processing payments to bypass the non-existent censorship.

In response, Assange called me, and my fellow FPF board members, rats

https://twitter.com/micahflee/status/949001208605192198

The group was also intensely focused on Assange's Swedish rape case. Assange posted a link to Elizabeth Fritz's website, lawyer representing one of his accusers. It prominently featured this photo of her firm's all-female legal staff.

They really felt threatened by that photo...

Then Assange went on a conspiracy-ridden rant about Swedish rape law, proclaiming that "the accusation industry is highly profitable."

He accused Fritz of working with Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to "tag-team the accused."

Fritz said: "Wikileaks and Assange have, and continue to, deliberately spread false information in an attempt to turn public opinion against the women accusing Assange of sexual offenses, cast doubt on the accusations, and to discredit myself and the Swedish legal system."

Assange also went after @PennyRed, calling her a "fake leftist, and a manipulative, predatory exhibitionist." He later said she's part of the "cliterati of London" and called her a "fauximist."

Here's the story that the "cliterati" didn't write about, which Assange says is "clear proof that they're fakes." theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/24…

(In the 2.5 years of DMs that frequently discuss rape, this is the only time Assange appears to believe a woman accusing someone of rape)

"We don't require Wikileaks to be the arbiter of what our feminist politics should be. I really cannot overemphasize how little I care what Julian Assange thinks about anything I do," @PennyRed said after seeing the DMs

The group spent weeks trying to preempt an article @JessicaValenti was writing about Assange's rape case.

She said, "These messages speak for themselves: This is a powerful organization strategizing to discredit me and a brave woman who simply wanted to share her story."

The Twitter group was also obsessed with Risk, Laura Poitras' documentary about WikiLeaks and Assange. WikiLeaks called it "revenge porn against Jake" referring to alleged rapist @ioerror.

First, some background.

Jacob Appelbaum is a WikiLeaks volunteer and former employee of @torproject. In June 2016 an anonymous group of whistleblowers within the Tor community launched jacobappelbaum.net full of accusations of rape and sexual assault against him

Since then, several women have publicly come forward as accusers:

@isislovecruft blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for…
@flexlibris medium.com/@flexlibris/th…
@chelseakomlo medium.com/@chelsea.komlo…

Appelbaum was featured in Risk. In response to the allegations (and WL's role in the election), Poitras realized her doc wasn't done.

She said: "I thought I could ignore the contradictions. I thought they were not part of the story. I was so wrong. They are becoming the story."

In the film she disclosed that she and Appelbaum had "been involved briefly in 2014" and that after they ended their relationship "he was abusive to someone close to me."

Now, back to the leaked DMs.

Assange went on a rant against Poitras, accusing her of changing her film for profit (...?). He called the film "boring US imperialism" (?). He called Jake "sex-accused" (he's accused of rape, not sex).

He never entertained the idea that maybe she believed the women.

Here's a scene in Risk (paraphrased for space):

Lawyer: Stop sounding like you think this is a mad feminist conspiracy. That's not helpful

Assange: No, to say it publicly it's not helpful. Privately, it's a thoroughly tawdry radical feminist political positioning thing

Here's another scene:

Assange: "Part of the problem in this case is there's two women, and the public just can't even keep them separate. If there was one, you could go, 'She's a bad women.' I think that would have happened by now."

Brenda Coughlin, producer of Risk, said:

"Misogyny, self-pity and calculated lies from Assange? That's no surprise after our dealings with him and his lawyers on Risk. They repeatedly sought to censor the film to get us to remove Assange's own sexist comments."

(Oh also, @EFF executive director said in an interview, "I am not a fan of WikiLeaks, but I don't think it is fair to throw rocks at everything they do." In response, Assange called her a "stupid bay area neo-liberal" and part of the "anti-Jacob persecutrixity.")

After @xychelsea was sentenced to 35 years (she served 7) for leaking secret docs (including evidence of US war crimes) to WikiLeaks, she announced her gender transition.

Assange supported her legal case, but appears to consider her gender a distraction.

Assange suggested an artist making a status of @xychelsea should make it look male because "Manning does have a Y chromosome and male genitalia"

He said the project would get diverted into trans politics thanks to "statist fake radicals", and the "gender issue is really vulgar"

In a recent interview @xychelsea said about WikiLeaks: "I reached out to the New York Times and the Washington Post, I ran out of time, and that was the decision I made. I can’t change that." She also said she's had no contact with Assange since 2010 theguardian.com/us-news/2018/j…

While in prison, @xychelsea befriended cryptographer and Tor developer @isislovecruft (one of @ioerror's accusers).

Chelsea implemented a cryptosystem for fun, reading code over the phone to her lawyer, and Isis typed it into an editor to debug/execute it vocativ.com/429042/chelsea…

"That's not good," Assange wrote when he heard. He then shared an unfounded rumor that Isis has XY chromosomes, and joked that her real name is Bruce Anders, presumably because it's masculine-sounding.

Check out @isislovecruft's response.

@JulianAssange *really* doesn't like Sweden.

The @SnoopDogg thing is true btw: theguardian.com/music/2015/jul…

Also, he thinks "gansters with ho's and fast cars is more original" than @taylorswift13

Words like "bigot," "sexist," "homophobe," and "anti-semite" are completely meaningless, right @WikiLeaks?

:)