White House ridicules Assange’s Clinton resignation remarks
02 Dec 2010
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder wanted to expose the secrets of China and Russia as much as those of the US, and believes if Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to engage in espionage she should resign.
"Clinton should resign if it could be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage of UN activities, in violation of the international covenants to which the US signed up," Assange said in an interview with Time magazine.
The interview was published yesterday following the leak of secret US diplomatic cables that have caused huge embarrassment to the US.
Assange who was speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location has a warrant against him issued by Interpol for allegations of rape in Sweden. His lawyer has dismissed the allegations as amounting to persecution and a smear campaign.
Though Assange has come in for criticism from former members of the WikiLeaks project for selectively focusing on the US, he believes countries with less transparent polities, such as China and Russia, held out the greatest potential for reform by whistleblowers.
Assange said the project members believed that the most closed societies had the greatest potential to reform. He added that while parts of the Chinese government and security services appeared terrified of free speech, he believed it was an optimistic sign as it meant there speech could still cause reform.
