Julian Assange has stated publicly that he has a vendetta against Clinton because of her attempts to prosecute Wikileaks while Secretary of State[0], and that he intends to destroy her campaign.

>Are they in-directly supporting Trump ?

Yes. I doubt that Wikileaks, Trump and Russia are actively conspiring towards Trump's election, it just happens that the goals of the Republican Party, Russia and Julian Assange all happen to neatly correlate - Trump wants to be elected, Russia would rather Trump than Clinton was elected, and Assange wants Clinton to not get elected.

All that requires is from Wikileaks is a willingness to publish anything that even appears damaging to one party and nothing damaging to the other. Luckily for Trump, anything published by Wikileaks appears damaging by default, because people assume a level of impartiality and due diligence on their part that they may not really be engaged in.

The fact alone that there are leaks related to the Democrats and not the Republicans will lead people to assume that the Democrats are more corrupt, and the Republicans more trustworthy.

[0]https://theintercept.com/2016/08/06/accusing-wikileaks-bias-...

But Clinton has more power over media than Trump and I have seen more positive bias in media towards Clinton than towards Trump. The media is creating more noise and publishing their opinions rather than doing good old journalism of bringing news to public without their personal bias. Well, I thought Trump was racist and didn't like him at all. But then I looked into what Clinton has done, Trump looks like better option than Clinton on ethical grounds of who is cleaner politician. Clinton was in power, and what did she do with that power. I think she has been in power long enough and that Trump should be given a chance. My personal reason for not liking Clinton is that video about "we came, we won" comment about Gadaffi getting killed, Clinton getting protected eventhough there is evidence that she carelessly handled confidential email, but since she has power she got away. Why should she be treated different than any govt employee that mishandles confidential info? And the thing about those giving donations to Clinton foundation getting more meetings with her while she was secretary of state than others who didn't get that preferential treatment from her. I think Trump has more integrity than Clinton.

While you're right on with Trumps close ties with Russia, it's not accurate to say that the Republican party is. In fact, senators like McCain and others have long pushed for arming Ukraine to combat the Russian incursion and there was bipartisan support to sanction Russia over Crimea. It's really just Trump.

Trump is now the standard bearer for the Republicans, and the party's de facto leader. If he's elected, the Republicans are going to have to learn to at least pretend to share his views or else be divided against themselves.

One could ask a similar question about most media vendors, replacing Trump with Clinton. WikiLeaks, whether deliberately or not, is simply doing its part to redress the balance in negative and scandalising news coverage.

It should be made clear that I am neither a US citizen nor a Trump supporter. Huge emphasis on the latter!

That's based on a flawed notion of balance, the idea that news media should publish equal amounts of "negative and scandalizing news".

It's flawed in that it assumes that equal amounts of such information exist. When Trump shoots some grandmother in the face, people expect equal prominence for "Hillary came to my house and left the bathroom light on".

Parts of the news media have been bending over backwards to avoid the appearance of partisanship, which gave us the endless faux-scandal regarding her mailserver.

The same principle leads to news media sometimes creating the impression that global warming is some sort of scientific debate, because they feel the need to give equal billing to the doubters while reality is 99-1 lopsided.

Trump may actually have a positive impact in the end, in that he may stretch the concept until it breaks. Indeed we can see it breaking down in the last few weeks with, for example, newspapers publishing harsh editorials and endorsements against him whereas they remained quite in previous elections.

If the current trend could continue for another six months, we'd see every article in every newspaper end with "cetero censeo Trump delende est"

You are joking, right?

There may be some truth to your assertion that recent Trump coverage has become more negative. This is primarily for two reasons.

Admittedly, coverage during the primaries hailed Trump as the anti-establishment political maverick that would redefine the GOP. At the time, the coverage was nauseatingly positive and, at the very worst, ambivalent. The media coverage on Clinton, on the other hand, was clearly confrontational (perhaps because she was the "incumbent" candidate). This sort of coverage has elicited some soul-searching among journalists and mass media based on the logic that the media infatuated with The Donald and gleefully collaborated in his political ascendance (yes, Trump is a colorful man, but, truth be told, he is far worse things as a person, a subject that has been prominently covered).

And this brings me to the second point. The recent turn in Trump's media coverage (in terms of tone at least) is also fueled by his numerous scandals, mistakes, and missteps. It is beyond me when the tone really became adversarial (perhaps after the nomination when the attention shifted to him and there was a long overdue re-calibration in how the media engages with his campaign). In truth, this is a referendum for or against Trump and this argument is further compounded by the fact that staunch and prominent Republicans are abandoning their party's flag bearer in support (more or less) of Clinton (this is unprecedented considering the vitriolic opposition that the party and its supporters have for the Clintons.

While it can be argued that media coverage has shifted in Clinton's favor (mostly due to Trump's own fault as an individual and presidential candidate), the same cannot be said of Wikileaks whose agenda from the very beginning has been admittedly pro-Trump. Wikileaks is partisan and this, while not a disqualifier in of itself, says a lot about its motivations in releasing leaks that paint a non-flattering picture of the Clinton campaign.

That said, these transcripts do not reveal a lot that is new about Clinton as has been noted by other commenters here (except, perhaps, for the fact that she says political leaders need to have private and public positions on policy matters) and her campaign has already been vindicated by the administration's admission that there is a political motive behind the leaks. The political ramifications of these leaks may not be as dramatic (the fodder that they afford her opponents has been unsuccessfully utilized by her foe-turned-apologist Sanders) as Trump's recent bombshell video leak of supposed "locker room banter."

1. News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences (http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential...)

2. A deep dive into the news media’s role in the rise of Donald J. Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/2...)

> Are they in-directly supporting Trump ?

So it's your opinion that because Trump is extremely bad, Clinton is immune to criticism? It doesn't matter if she also has problems?

Criticizing Clinton does not necessarily mean support for Trump. They are both terrible candidates, just in different ways. While Russia does seem to be pushing for Trump, criticism of Clinton's ties to Wall Street are another matter.

(That also does not imply some sort of false equivalency. When it's time to vote, a strategic vote for the lesser evil may be necessary, but that doesn't mean Clinton shouldn't be criticized for her own problems.)

I think he's saying that when you are locked down to a choice between a shit sandwich and a total shit storm with like 1 month to go throw away your grievances till 2020 and suck it up.

Doesn't mean I agree with this, tho I mostly do, at some point you need to realize that there is a time and place for criticism and this isn't it.

Then when IS it time to criticize her? Voting for her because she is the lesser evil doesn't mean she gets as free pass on criticism. That kind of dogmatic devotion is always a terrible idea and against the very idea of democracy. If Clinton doesn't want criticism, maybe she should expand her platform a bit and earn her votes.

Probably not a month before the election, there isn't dogmatic devotion, I'm not an American (I would be terribly concerned if I was). But not now, it's too late to expand her platform to earn her votes, especially considering that if we face it everything that any politician will promise a month before the election is bollox, even Bernie would resort at the final mile to promising the world to win as anything else is irresponsible especially in this election.

If the majority of tweets on an entity's Twitter feed is dedicated to attacking Clinton for months on end whilst refraining from attacking the other candidate with a non-zero probability of becoming the next President, it's probably reasonable to assume they're indirectly supporting that other candidate, even if it's only because they consider the other candidate a lesser evil. It's not exactly as if many other sources for commentary and information on the US election that aren't explicitly supporting Trump have struggled to find archives of unfortunate things he's said or others have said about him either.

Wikileaks tends to have a history of publish everything worthwhile. It is very possible that there is simply more far more data on Clinton. I remember years ago when all the republicans were so against wikileaks, and HN type progressives being for them. Now that its more the other way around all of the sudden wikileaks is a Kremlin shill organization.

They don't worry about whether stuff is worthwhile before they publish it. They publish anything they think will get them attention.

If they were all about getting attention, they would get more attention by running a tabloid or glamor magazine

Why didn't they publish Russian PM Medvedev's email leak?

Every single media outlet in the US has been publishing at least one negative article about Trump/day and you want more?

I actually want to see less-biased media. I rarely see negative articles about Clinton and when the mainstream media covers something up, it's like they are all reading from the same playbook. The words are very similar.

The last set of wikileaks showed us that most of the mainstream media are an extension of the DNC. They first destroyed Sanders (an enemy of Clinton) and now they are trying to destroy Trump.

I also find it interesting that nobody cares that the majority of these Trump leaks are the result of illegal wiretapping. Yet, when there are wikileaks, we nees to focus on illegal russian hackers and not the content of the leaks.

It's scary to think that illegal activity is perfectly acceptable...as long as it is hurting someone you don't like.

> It is just strange for the russians to push so much for Trump and WikiLeaks are somehow assisting them.

Is there any real, substantial proof the Russians support Wikileaks?

I think it is at least partially revenge based on Clinton's hard-line policy against WikiLeaks and Assange.

Well, if wikileaks had any thing that shows Trump in a different light, like if he isn't what he claims to be, then am certain they would release damaging reports about Trump too. Wikileaks is not creating these evidences. Some people who sees discrepancy in what a politician says and what that politicians do in private(that concerns people being governed, not private things about their personal life), then people will release evidence of that discrepancy. If they have such discriminating evidence about Trump, then that will come out too. If Clinton is bad person than trump, then Clinton will have more skeletons in closet and chances of skeletons coming to public view is greater for Clinton than for Trump

Because they have it? I'm sure if they had Trump's tax returns they would leak them.

Why does it have to be a conspiracy that they're trying to help Trump? He's beaten up in the news everyday. He doesn't seem to need any help getting into trouble.

Assange has publicly stated that he doesn't want HRC to become president. He hasn't officially supported Trump, considering the choice between Clinton & Trump the same as choosing between cholera and gonhorrea.

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/06/accusing-wikileaks-bias-...

As to why there's nothing on Trump, it may be anything. Actual support indeed, or just no documents coming up on the republic party.

It looks like anyone with stuff to leak about Trump is choosing to send it to either the mainstream press or the Clinton campaign at the moment, both of which can be relied on to use it for maximum damage. Even if Wikileaks was willing to publish anti-Trump documents and spin them as evidence of the most dastardly deeds possible, why send them there when the NYT will do the same with a much bigger, more trusting audience?

I'm not sure the Russians need to be involved in any way, given how much Hillary and Assange detest each other. Obsessive tweets in his case; a reported sardonic suggestion to "drone the guy" and more serious consideration of prosecuting him in hers.

The trouble with @Wikileaks obsessively and indiscriminately tweeting anti-Hillary leaks of greatly varying significance is that it tends to do a lot less damage than one or two really big revelations. I mean, it's really not Hillary's message and target audience I'm worried about when @Wikileaks tweets about her "private Jewish speech" when she - shock, horror - apparently observed that Saudis had exported a lot of extreme ideology in recent years...

> The trouble with @Wikileaks obsessively and indiscriminately tweeting anti-Hillary leaks

It also reduces peoples' trust in Wikileaks and the veracity of the information they release.

Wikileaks' reputation as a (mostly) "impartial" actor was one of their greatest assets, and they seem to be throwing that away simply to sate Assange's desire for revenge...

The leaks show how Clinton has abused her position as a public servant. OTOH Trump is a private citizen.

They are directly supporting Trump.