Assange Derides Russian Hacking Intel Report, Calls It 'Embarrassing'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday dismissed the intelligence report on Russian hacking, calling it "embarrassing" and a "press release" that fell short of proving anything.

Assange released a statement via Periscope and then took questions from Twitter users.

"It is frankly quite embarrassing to the reputation of the U.S. intelligence services to be putting out something that claims to be a report like that," Assange said, according to the Washington Examiner.

"This is a press release. It is clearly designed for political effects, as U.S. intelligence services has been politicized by the Obama administration in the production of this report and a number of other statements," Assange was quoted by the Examiner.

The unclassified report put the blame squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin for orchestrating a campaign to sway public opinion against Hillary Clinton in an effort to help Donald Trump win the election, which he did.

Assange, the middleman who released thousands of those documents proving embarrassing to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, has maintained all along he did not get the hacked documents from Russia.

"We can't play 20 questions with our sources, gradually narrowing down the ambit of who they are," Assange was quoted by the Examiner. "We're concerned about protecting our sources . . . If our sources were, for example, a state, we would have a lot less concern in attempting to protect them."

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