Story highlights
Trump called WikiLeaks "disgraceful" and suggested there be a "death penalty" for their actions during a 2010 interview.
His 2010 comments are in sharp contrast to his decision Wednesday morning to invoke WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Donald Trump called WikiLeaks “disgraceful” and suggested there be a “death penalty” for their actions during a 2010 interview.
Speaking on camera to preview Brian Kilmeade’s radio show, the Fox News anchor brought up the topic of WikiLeaks. At the time, WikiLeaks had published hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos that were leaked to the organization by Pfc. Chelsea Manning, known at the time as Pfc. Bradley Manning.
“I think it’s disgraceful, I think there should be like death penalty or something,” Trump said during the quick exchange uncovered online by CNN’s KFile.
His 2010 comments are in sharp contrast to his decision Wednesday morning to invoke WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who claimed in a new Fox News interview that the Russian government was not the source of the hacks during the presidential campaign.
Following the interview, Trump tweeted: “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”
The president-elect has repeatedly questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was the source of the hacks, which took place during the 2016 presidential campaign and targeted Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee. During the campaign, Trump cited information released by WikiLeaks to attack Clinton and the DNC.
A Trump transition team spokesperson did not return a request to comment on the record for this story.
Watch the full clip here: