Former GOP Rep Says He Discussed Potential Pardon With Wikileaks’ Julian Assange

Former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.) said he told WikiLeaks’ 💻Julian Assange that he would ask President Donald Trump about granting him a pardon if he produced information that said Russian operatives did not hack the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) server.

Rohrabacher told Yahoo News that he met Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2017 to discuss the potential deal.

In the interview, Rohrabacher said he wanted Assange to find evidence that a DNC staffer who was murdered in 2016 — Seth Rich — was the individual behind the hack of the DNC’s email servers. That hack led to the release of damaging information in the middle of a presidential campaign.

“I spoke to 💻Julian Assange and told him if he would provide evidence about who gave WikiLeaks the emails, I would petition the president to give him a pardon,” Rohrabacher told Yahoo News, adding, “He knew I could get to the president.”

He added that they discussed the idea with former Chief of Staff John Kelly, who “knew this had to be handled with care” but did not guarantee that he would mention the idea of a pardon for Assange directly to Trump.

Rohrabacher said he didn’t want Assange to lie or make up information, but rather to release information that would show it was Reich who was behind the leak of the emails.