WikiLeaks announced in a tweet Wednesday the Senate Intelligence Committee called on its founder Julian Assange to testify on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“US Senate Intelligence Committee calls editor @JulianAssange to testify. Letter delivered via US embassy in London. WikiLeaks’ legal team say they are ‘considering the offer but testimony must conform to a high ethical standard,’” the tweet said.
The tweet also included a copy of the letter delivered to Assange.
It requests Assange make himself “available” for a closed interview with the committee “at a mutually agreeable time and location,” and to respond as soon as he receives the letter.
Spokespeople for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, and the top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, declined to comment on the letter.
Interviewing Assange is a complicated prospect, as the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012. CNN reported in July that his situation has become untenable and he may soon leave.
The letter from WikiLeaks provides a hint at where the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation is still probing when it comes to Russian election interference and collusion.
Burr and Warner have said little in recent months about the direction of the panel’s investigation into possible collusion between members of President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, while they have quietly conducted more than 100 interviews for an investigation that’s been ongoing for more than a year. The committee has interviewed most senior members of Trump’s campaign team behind closed doors.
This year, the committee has released reports or held hearings on US election security, the intelligence community’s assessment of 2016 Russian election interference, the Obama administration’s response and Russia’s use of social media. But they have saved their findings on possible collusion for the end of their investigation.
WikiLeaks was apparently cited, though not by name, in last month’s indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of 12 Russian intelligence officials for hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The indictment suggested Assange and WikiLeaks were a conduit for Russian intelligence in distributing hacked Democratic Party emails in 2016.
“The conspirators (…) discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact,” the indictment stated, with “Organization 1” an apparent reference to WikiLeaks.