NSA Wikileaks

That Bizarre Q&A With Julian Assange

During a video-conferenced presentation, Wikileaks leaders Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum and Sarah Harrison were asked by an attendee, “What was the most difficult part on getting Snowden out of the U.S.?”

Their response was rather peculiar, via Michael Kelley at Business Insider:

Assange, Harrison and “American WikiLeaks Hacker” Jacob Appelbaum all laughed, and then Appelbaum said: “That’s quite a loaded question.”

Assange then said: “Yeah, that’s interesting to think whether we can actually answer that question at all. I’ll give a variant of the answer because of the legal situation it is a little bit difficult.”

If they didn’t help Snowden leave Hawaii, they should’ve just responded, “We reject the premise of the question,” and moved on. But the fact that they left it open-ended could mean they’re trying to hide something for legal reasons. Why not simply deny it?

I haven’t seen hard evidence linking Wikileaks to Snowden pre-Hong Kong, but this exchange makes me wonder. It’s also worth noting the close ties between Wikileaks and Moscow, where Snowden is currently holed up. Your thoughts?