continues. i'll be at over a different line. thank you fors watching. with love. >> and happy new year, happy 2017 and welcome to "hannity." tonight, we have a short opening monologue. democrats continue to make the claim of the russian government is directly tied to thee 2016 election hacking and with weeksi to go before he leaves office, president obama announced sanctions against russia. they released a coinciding report supposedly containing evidence that the russian government coordinated all of these cyber attacks. that report gets very few details and a massive big disclaimer. the kratz were also pointing a finger at wikileaks, saying that they provided them thousands of emails from the dnc and john podesta.

exposing corruption, media collusion with the clinton campaign and downright dirty politics all the way around. in light of all these developments, i decided to go straight to the source. so yesterday, i traveled to london to sit down with wikileaks founder, julian assange, in an attempt to set the record street. for four and a half years, he has been confined at the ecuadorian embassy where he has not seen the light of day in all that time. so julian assange of course founded the group wikileaks in 2006, he made international headlines after releasing thousands of u.s. classified documents.20 he was detained in england after swedish officials issued an arrest warrant that he may have sexually assaulted two women. a charge that he will respond to

later in this interview. he was granted asylum in the ecuadorian embassy in the city of london. he has been living there ever sense, and very, very confined tiny quarters. in this wide-ranging interview which we will show for the entire hour tonight, he will expose government and media corruption. >> sean: let me start with the american elections. from your perspective, how big s role do you feel wikileaks had in the outcome of the election? you didn't think donald trump was going to win. >> i thought the establishment for one of the better words, would see hillary clinton and would pile in more money and more energy. tv networks on heron side. i think it admits something

fundamental. which is that the amount of investments for a clinton campaign, the portion to the degree that the establishment thought she would lose.o and she was aggressively projecting that she would be the inevitable winner. she was about five -- ten points, if they thought she was going to lose, maybe she would have gotten different results. >> sean: it's a very interesting post election. didn't even happen immediately. but the narrative has begun that in fact the u.s. government is accusing wikileaks and having received materials from russia and russian cyber criminals with the political agenda. they're not just a talking about the john podesta emails, but in

other ways. i've asked you before. did russia give you this information or anybody associated with russia? >> they are not a state party. the answer is no. but if we look at the most recent, we had five different branches of government, cia data, presenting their accusations to underpin obama's putting out 35 russian diplomats. what was missing from all of those? it's f very strange. my interpretation is not surprisingly, a problem they feel, we don't know how wikileaks got this information.

we don't know when. let's imagine, okay, the problem here is that wikileaks published information. what are they saying? wikileaks published true information that the american public read, that information was the words of hillary clinton. her campaign manager, john podesta and other people in her campaign. and the american public read that information. true information. and it said, we don't like these people.n and then voted accordingly.li what they want to do instead is conflate our publication of true information with, say, hacking or alleged hacking. from vote counting machines.

even obama admitted there has been no hacking from that. for mostd americans -- go speak department of homeland security, in fact, wikileaks was working with the russian government to influence the election. >> sean: is that true in any shape matter or form? >> no. if you read the statements carefully, it doesn't actually say that. they kind of mention one fact here, one fact there, and nothing else. in the most up-to-dateki information from the december 29th statement, what is completely absent from all those statements is wikileaks. totally absent.

what is going on? ii believe two things are going on. number one, they don't have the evidence that wikileaks is involved in that way. why my confident about that? because there isn't one person in the world and i think it is actually only one who knows exactly what is going on.ld without publications. and that is me. >> sean: can be saved to the american people unequivocally that you did not get this information about dnc, john podesta, that you did not get it from russia or anyone associated with russia? >> over the last two months, our source is not the russian government. it is not state parties. >> sean: there was one report that someone you are friendly with was handed the documents at

a american university from a disgruntled democrat. because of revelation showed that bernie sanders had been betrayed and they didn't likeat the corruption of the clinton foundation. can you confirm or deny that? >> that came from craigon murra, a friend of mine. wikileaks is a source of information. we are famous for never having exposed one of our sources. that's why sources trust us. they come to us. and so, i can't comment on other people's statements about our sources except that they -- what we have said. which is that our sources are not state parties.

>> sean: have you ever talked to vladimir putin? >> no. >> sean: have you ever talk to any of his surrogates? donald trump? any of his surrogates? >> no.. no.e no. i think where this claim is coming from is there is a radio guy on wbai which is a mutual friend who wanted to come see me, to see if -- he didn't come to london, but he didn't leave with me. >> sean: if you say it is false, it did not come from russia, and the president of the united states is advancing the narrative. is the president of the united states lying to the american people? >> well, he is acting like a lawyer. he doesn't say that. he doesn't say wikileaks

obtained its information from russia, worked with russia -- >> sean: he is trying to say russia is trying to influence american elections. >> yes. does say -- he doesn't say russia was trying to influence the election for donald trump. he doesn't say that. we have to be very careful about the language that is used to try to conflate things together. the question is, wikileaks publications. true information that the american people took up and they acted accordingly. did you have a lot of influence? statistically, yes. it was the number one topic on facebookon throughout october.

the number one topic on twitter. also throughout october. did it change the outcome? who knows. if it did, the accusation is that the true statement of hillary clinton as her campaign manager, john podesta and the dnc -- they are true statements is what changed the election. >> sean: how do you view yourself?ha are you a journalist? do you view this as reporting -- for example, it's interesting because at one point in the campaign, "the new york times" got a hold of donald trump's taxes which by the way they obtained a wow illegally. you are not going to reveal your source but no one has said what you released is not true. they went forward with the story on his taxes. is there any difference?

>> there is a difference. our material, the public responded to it more than "the new york times." but the editor of "the new york times," she has come out and said that he would do the same thing withng wikileaks. if they had obtained the information, they would publish it. unfortunately, i don't believe t that is true. i believe they would selectively may be published, they would not have done what we did which was present the american publict everything that we knew. can you just imagine if wikileaks had information wrecking the primary? and we withheld that information until after the election? unfortunately, those sorts of

acts do happen. not with this organization. >> sean: in 2015, the chinese stole millions of personal documents. classified information on individuals who were seeing and working for our government, et cetera. if they don't say anything about china and they selectively choose this, is it to delegitimize donald trump? what is your interpretation on that? >> if you look at what the allegations are, they don't mention wikileaks. the only mention our publication. our publication had wide uptake by the american people. they are all true. but that's not the allegation that is being presented. by the obama white house. so why such a dramatic response? well, the reason is obvious. they are trying to delegitimize

the trump administration as it goes into the white house. they're going to try to say that president-elect trump is not a legitimate ---- >> sean: is your information -- >> they will harp on it for the next four years. i think t think that is a mistake not just in fact, that is a mistake for the u.s. democratic party. i think it is a stupid maneuver. it is the same reason why they lost the election. which is instead of focusing on substance, they focused on other things which they think his short-term wins. but it's not strategic. a little comment like here and there from trump. how outrageous it is that the american public received true information before the election.

they want as much information as possible. >> sean: if the information you had was about donald trump and his campaign, would you have released that? >> absolutely.ea once again, think about itut frm our perspective. we have won a lot of media awards. we have but trusted our readers. having never got it wrong. >> sean: ten years, not even one evidence of you beingt proven wrong. >> we have a perfect record, authenticating the information we publish. we try to preserve that reputation. what else do we have a record for? there are no sources coming out through other journalists, saying, we gave wikileaks all this information about donald

trump or president ziyi or putin. and you know what? they didn't publish it. no one has come out and it sent that. they did, they would hurt our reputation or trust from our sources.t >> sean: i knowro you want to protect your sources and when you first told me on my radioot show that it was not russia, you said so reluctantly, can i take it one step further? was the source within the united states?ur >> i don't want to constrain whether it was someone inside the united states in the dnc, and the service providers, the provides the or outside, i think we have already posted quite a lot. >> sean: more than you would like. >> more than we would like. that was necessary to do because

there was a serious attempt to distract fromke the contents of our publication with its russian narrative. our sourcess are interested in two things. they're interested in protecting their identity but also not going through t all that effort and risking themselves only to have the publication undermined. >> sean: what you make of the president of the united states, in the next 24 to 48 hours, he made a point to impose 12 sanctions, vladimir putin -- you are saying that russia did not give you this information. he is very closely suggesting

that in fact, they did. and he is wrong. so my question is, does he know he is wrong from your perspective? >> he has to>> know. he is playing games. >> sean:ay is he lying to the american people? >> he is playing games by trying to go with the idea that russia "hacked" the american election. for which there is no evidence. then saying without suggesting -- suggesting without saying that our information was part of the plot to get donald trump elected. once again, from our side there is no evidence. we don't know how wikileaks, or

when they got this information. it's a construction to try to erect a topic that donald trump is illegitimately elected. >> sean: more in the interview up next, election hacking, straightahead tonight. on "hannity." years old. when i was diagnosed with pneumococcal pneumonia, it was huge for everybody. she just started to decline rapidly. i was rushed to the hospital... my symptoms were devastating. the doctor said, "pam! if you'd have waited two more days, you would've died." if i'd have known that a vaccine could have helped prevent this, i would have asked my doctor or pharmacist about it.

anything with a screen is a tv. stream 130 live channels. plus 40,000 on demand tv shows and movies, all on the go. you can even download from your x1 dvr and watch it offline. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. download the xfinity tv app today. >> live from american news ultra physics president lex tweeted tuesday tuesday night, he will have a "general news conference" on january 11th in

new york city. mr. trump also another tweet said he will meet with intelligence officials friday on russian interference with the election. he remained skeptical claiming the briefing will be held later than initially expected. he writes. the medical association want them to show "reasonable detail how they plan to replace obamacare before congress votes to appeal it." the ama represents many of the nation's doctors and a supportive passages into law when it was enacted in 2010. i am jackie ibanez, now back to "hannity" ." >> sean: welcome back to "hannity," during my exclusivee interview with julian assange at the ecuadorian embassy in london, i asked him about the fbi and the report on the election hacking, let's take a look. the department of homeland security, this goes to december' 29th of this year, federal

investigations lead russian influence to the american election. supposedly theyle give details, technical details, but they don't give any positives. >> the devising of the five-page description, the rest is just fairly boring. on top, there is the disclaimer. they can't guarantee that any of this is confirmed. i used to be a computer security

expert. that was my job. this is a bad report and you look in the rest of the computer security community, you will see dozens of others -- computer security experts -- there is nothing in that report that says any information given to us. nothing. what they have is what they call indicators. a way to recognize these alleged russian tools have been used on this. in response to that, some engineer found his signature on one of their laptops. okay. then this was -- i've read those reports in detail.

it was discovered this was a commercially available tool. used by ukraine. so it is straight out of the batch. we either have ait deliberate attempt or a thoroughly competent work. that story about the laptop at the power generation center, that was picked up by "the washington post" and the administration, pushed everywhere, and it was completely bogus. >> sean: that was bogus? there is another side of this, which is fascinating, which is that hillary rodham clinton had a privateng server at a mom and pop shop in a bathroom closet that i would argue -- lawyers would make arguments that it was illegal for her to have. from what we understand, the

jump at us the emails were hacked threewe fishing scheme, d he did so. >> there were a number of tax that the dnc and john podesta -- republished as d proud of our fl disclosure policy, we published the thorough john podesta emails that shows he was responding to a phishing email. how did they respond? podesta gave out that his password was the word password. this email that you received? this is totally legitimate.as this is something a 14-year-old kid could have hacked. based on computer security and hillary clinton's security.

the secretary of state's emails, if you read closely, you'll see had access to them. a variety of technicians. small company, she had over a dozen different devices that had access to them. her ipod, et cetera. she made almost no attempt to keep them secure. was she trying to keep them secure from the republicans? probably. but in terms -- >> sean: the reason we have these laws though are for transparency. she wanted to avoid congressional oversight. >> that is that is absolutely my

interpretation as well. this is probably actually against our interests as a publisher. but we believe that people have the right to know true information about what the government is doing. the freedom of informationut act is being subverted. we published sarah palin's emails. why? because she when she was governor of alaska, she maintained an account that was being used intentionally or not to evade the lasting free information act. >> sean: during the 2016 election, i will ask julian assange about that next. all of that, and more. be right back.

>> sean: welcome back to "hannity," we discussed how

wikileaks exposed the mainstream media here in america and thess clinton campaign. let's take a look. >> journalism is that, i said it in 2008. because i was investigating barack obama. and his backgrounds. and his associations. and his career. and his lack of knowledge. and his radical belief system. and immediately ignored a lot of it. so my question to you is, knowing what wikileaks revealed about the podesta emails on cleansing corruption,al on berne sanders being cheated, not an lot of this was covered. so what does the state of the american people about media coverage in america? dishonest? >> it is very dishonest. depends on your definition. if you look at what we publish>> -- >> sean: if they are colluding

with hillary, is that ethical corruption? >> corruption also means taking money in exchange. so i don't think that -- >> sean: so, collusion. >> it's more like, you rub my >> it's more like, you rub my back, i'll rub yours. i will give you information, i'll invit christening or my next big party. you know what i mean? i think it is more sadly, i think it's more along those lines. >> sean: i look at those lists --n: >> can i go back to this media question?

what is the line now, the line is that wikileaks changed the results of the election. the editor of wikileaks, we are happy to have credit for exposing corruption and behavior in that clinton team and the dnc. quite happy to accept that. >> sean: was that if your motivation?? to influence the election? what is your motivation? fidelity to truth? >> in ten years with wikileaks, it has been to publish true information that is otherwise unstable. so we are not in competition -- >> sean: so you have no political agenda?

>> it is not a party political agenda. it is a philosophical agenda. we believe that the best type of government comes from a government that is scrutin by the people, when they have true information, our government, big corporations -- >> sean: as a conservative, onee of the things that's shocked mee in this election cycle. it drove me crazy for years. the narrative that would be used by the democrats about conservatives like myself that republicans are racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic. islamic phobic, xena phobic, what was fascinating and not many people want to pay attention to it because of the media collusion is they were exposed as using racial language.

being anti-somatic, homophobic, which led to on the eve of the democratic national convention, she was fired. that to me was the type of thing -- if you sort of open a window and things are not often the way the appear. if that now a new reality going is not going to do their job, they are going to be more wikileaks in the future? >> well, i surely hope so. >> sean: he has released classified documents generating extreme controversy, we will discuss that and more up next on "hannity." >> sean: welcome back to

>> sean: welcome back to "hannity." julian a sans created international controversy, julian assange.

many, including myself at the time, had criticized him for doing this and during our sitdown inteiew, i asked assange where wikileaks draws the line. take a look. i told you this, when you first came on the scene in 2010, i was afraid you were waging war against the u.s. i said, you know, other people might be -- this classified information -- could put american lives at risk. that was my concern. so in the meantime, what you released at that time, the standard operating procedures,s, delta, the u.s. army, camp at gitmo, you released a classified video of the baghdad helicopter. that killed two journalists.

you also released the afghanistan war logs, the iraq war logs, the guantanamo files. more diplomatic cables, wisteria files leading up to -- the syria files. you've done to go things that have been extraordinary helpful. and i think journalism in a way. one, you showed us that we do not have cyber security. you acknowledged that. in this election in particular, two, we expose a level of corruption that i -- for 30 years on the radio as a conservative, knew existed and i was shocked at the level of corruption, simplicity, dishonesty, manipulation.oc so there is a lot of good here. where does the line -- where is

the line for you? if lives are in jeopardy, is that a line? privacy for individuals? is that a line? if you were to be handed information about a private citizen, a hollywood actor. >> let's look at the practice. i am very proud of three things. number one, we have never got it wrong. because of what we say, a documentof is what it is. what you have printed, not to even it is there allegation. number two, we have never revealed our sources. >> sean: today you could reveal the sourceer of the podesta emails. that will make a lot of news. you don't like to say that. about russia. >> there is a distraction from

the publication, that we kind of have to distance ourselves from it. being fueled by any old rubbish. number three?? what are we proud of? we are proud that there is not a single instance of anyone comint into physical harm as a result of c our publication. >> sean: have you made constant conscious decisions, the release of your information was a result in someone's death? >> no, we thought there was a significant risk? >> sean: you are conscious of that? >> we are always transparent about it.

we are withholding this piece of information for a limited time until such time so there is not a significant risk that someone may not pay retribution. unlike other media torganizations, with huge reductions and no explanation as to why it is being redacted or beingns withheld. i know from practice, with more than 110 partnerships, information is withheld for political reasons and is then passed off. in order to protect individuals, so reductions are deeply corruptive. we are fighting -- >> sean: you are describing abc, nbc, cbs, political. you are describing the

mainstream media in america. >> we have similar problems with the guardian, they are often fine journalists who did good work. but they were critical cases where information that we shared in a partnership agreement under the basis that it would only be redacted for human rights reasons, we are protecting some of life, it was redacted to protect oil companies working in kazakhstan. or the former leader who was accused ofka awful murders in ukraine. here is the basic problem with censorship. once again, it creates a system where people can't see what were the reasons for the censorship? in the justice system, we say that there must be open justice

where there is justice. to be judged while trying, before the public. is engaged in sweeping things under the rug. >> sean: is it fair to say wikileaks is more interested in impacting the lives ofng people, not superfluous scandalous lives of big stars? >> we don't publish that. we haven't actually been put in a position where we'ver had to make that determination. because that's not what we do. most people go to tmc, for example. >> sean: julian assange has not stepped outside the ecuadoran embassy in london since 2012, i will ask him about the details of his confinement and more. coming up, straight ahead. detas jack be nimble, jack be quick,

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>> sean: welcome back to >> sean: welcome back to >> sean: welcome back to "hannity," so back in 2010, swedish authorities issued an warrant for julian assange for separate sexual assault allegations. he sought asylum at the ecuadoran embassy in london. i asked him about the allegations and more. >> let's put this in context. the situation where we are today -- >> sean: these are two swedish women. >> the women did not make the allegations. the state made the allegations. it is agreed although we have two the supreme court, it is the statehe of sweden that brought e

case. not the women trying to file charges. there aree no charges. >> sean: why would the state do that and not get the women on them?th you must be confronted by your accuser.n >> sean: not the case here. >> they admit in their own filing, a woman says that she was railroaded by the police and others. material. the police made up theia accusation and i've already been previously cleared by the chief prosecutor, there are no charges and twice this year, the u.n. revealing the whole situation has said that i was illegally detained and i should be immediately acquitted. it's a very important topic.

the case in the u.s. continues. the department of justice continues the whole thing. >> sean: even though they said they concluded -- >> this is the sneaky behavior of this administration. as we were complaining, look,ha the obama administration is refusing to release any document status. erecting a giant dam for all the material involvement. the reason no journalist can have this is because we are bringing prosecution.jo this is the end of investigative journalism if journalists can't say, hey, we heard a rumor. that there was a journalist killed in a drone strike. you know anything about that? and then you go and you prove

it. >> sean: but america, if you go back to watergate, they had a source. it was called deep throat. big source. >> under the obama administration, he would have been prosecuted. i have been detained illegally for six years, under house arrest, four and a half years vicinity. it is tough. it is tough but that is the mission that i set myself on. i am willing to accept that. i understand the kind of games being played with big, powerful actors. they try to take revenge. it is a bit different thing for my family. i have young children, under ten years old. they didn't sign up for that. okay?

they didn't sign up for that. that's not something i like and i think that is fundamentally unjust as an outcome for my children. it's not a good situation for other people as well. but that would be my one concern.ot i know what i'm doing, i am prepared where the consequences in dealing with powerful individuals. my family is innocent. in that equation. they did not sign up for that. >> sean: then, coming up, we will have more "hannity" right after this break.

what super poligrip does for me is it keeps the food out. before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. super poligrip is part of my life now. >> sean: time for our question of the day. now you've heard from julian as. who do you believe? do you believe julian or

president obama and hillary clinton? we want to hear from you. let us know what you think. and in 17 days, daylong obama nightmare is over.