Pamela Anderson ― Julian Assange’s biggest celebrity advocate ― is doubling down on her defense of the WikiLeaks founder, claiming his critics are scapegoating him for Hillary Clinton’s election loss.
In a Daily Beast op-ed published Thursday, the “Baywatch” actress argued that WikiLeaks’ 2016 release of Democratic National Committee emails did not unfairly alter the presidential race, but merely gave voters new information that may have changed their minds.
“This whole saga of ‘foreign intervention’ is fundamentally absurd, and mainstream opinion painfully misguided,” Anderson wrote. “No one interfered with the right of voters to inform themselves freely, choose their own candidate, and make their vote count — not Julian, not WikiLeaks, and not even the Russians.”
Despite Anderson’s attempt to diminish Russia’s actions during the election, former special counsel Robert Mueller made clear in a public statement Wednesday that “there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election,” stressing that the “allegation deserves the attention of every American.” Furthermore, in 2018, his office released a sweeping indictment of a dozen Russian military intelligence officials, pointing to Russian hackers as the source of the DNC emails, which were delivered to Wikileaks.
On that matter, Anderson told those who “believe the culprits were Russian hackers” to “sort it out with the Kremlin, but keep your hands off our freedom of the press!”
“So now you can sulk and whine all you want, but please don’t blame Julian for your own defeat,” she added. “If you and your lot have lost the trust of your people because they’ve learned the truth about you, well then perhaps you should stop in your tracks and think.”
Less than two weeks ago, a northern Virginia federal grand jury indicted Assange on 17 counts of espionage involving his work with Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army analyst who is currently being held in Virginia’s Alexandria Detention Center for refusing to testify in a grand jury’s investigation of WikiLeaks.
Assange worked with Manning in 2010 to publish classified information on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. That included a 2007 American airstrike in Baghdad that killed civilians and two Reuters journalists.
Critics of Assange’s arrest contend that the charges against him raise serious implications about press freedoms.
Earlier this month, Anderson was the first person to pay Assange a social visit at Belmarsh, a high-security lockup in London where he is serving out a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in an attempt to avoid being extradited to the U.S.
Following her visit, Anderson held a press conference outside the prison, declaring her love for Assange and calling him “an innocent person.”