Huma Abedin & Hillary Clinton Discuss Julian Assange in Emails: “Clever cyber thief to a convicted criminal”

The US State Department has released more than 1,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server on Thursday and Friday as part of a Freedom of Information request by Vice News on the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the private server. Many of these emails have previously been released by Wikileaks.

One email that has not been released by Wikileaks, available on the State Department website, shows Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, her senior aide, discussing ways to deal with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, after he published more than 250,000 diplomatic cables.

Abedin writes to Clinton in an email dated December 2, 2010, addressing the then-secretary of state’s statements on Assange and WikiLeaks.  Abedin explains that Assange’s actions should be viewed as a “criminal act” and that he will be prosecuted. In the email, she wrote:

Suggestions from roy on wiki. Basically thinks you should draw comparison between a clever game vs criminal act. He thinks  you should say something like:  We view this not as a “clever game” of wiki leaks but rather as a “criminal act” against the United States of America.  He might think this is a clever game today-but when he is prosecuted and if convicted-he will move from being a clever-cyber  thief to a convicted criminal–and will find out that’s a whole different kind of game.

This is nothing new. Hilary Clinton has been making vicious remarks about Assange for some time. In a State Department meeting, Clinton was quoted as saying, “Can’t we just drone this guy?”

Hillary Clinton on Assange “Can’t we just drone this guy” — report https://t.co/S7tPrl2QCZ pic.twitter.com/qy2EQBa48y

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 3, 2016

Just last month, Clinton made volatile remarks about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden during a town hall event:

Because he took valuable information and went first to China and then is now under the protection of Vladimir Putin, I think that raises a lot of questions about everything else he did. So I do not think he should escape having to return and answer for what he has done.