Shannon Stapleton
Donald Trump once suggested that the death penalty should be a punishment for WikiLeaks’ releases of information, according to newly unearthed comments the president-elect made to Fox News in 2010. CNN’s KFILE team uncovered the remarks, in which Trump called the leaking site “disgraceful” after it revealed documents stolen by Army Private Chelsea Manning, known at the time as Bradley Manning. “I think it’s disgraceful, I think there should be like death penalty or something,” Trump said. On Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a day after Assange claimed in a Fox News interview that the Russian government was not its source for the leaked emails from John Podesta’s inbox and the Democratic National Committee’s network. Trump has dismissed the intelligence community’s assessments about Russia’s involvement and intentions in the cyberattacks, siding instead with Assange.