Hillary Clinton's campaign accused Julian Assange of hacking emails and colluding with Russia.(Reuters)
Hillary Clinton's campaign has slammed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for hacking into its email system and accused it of colluding with Russia to help her Republican rival Donald Trump.
The head of Hillary Clinton's campaign team John Podesta blamed Russia for the alleged hacking into its email system resulting in Wikileaks releasing thousands of emails of its campaign staff and officials.
"I've been involved in politics for nearly five decades, and this definitely is the first campaign that I've been involved with in which I've had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies, who seem to be doing everything they can on behalf of our opponent," Podesta told reporters.
Podesta said he is in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in this regard. It also alleged that the Republican rival campaign of Donald Trump might have some inkling about it.
"I was in touch with the FBI on Sunday -- they confirmed that they're investigating a criminal hack of my email and we, of course, are fully cooperating with that investigation. We also heard today from law enforcement authorities that investigation is part of hacking...by Russian intelligence," Podesta said.
"I know that members of the press are having a good time live tweeting and live blogging what's coming out of WikiLeaks and we can't confirm the accuracy of those leaks," he said. Podesta based his allegations on reports that Roger Stone, a longtime friend of Trump had spoken to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, this summer.
"Stone pointed his finger at me, and said that I could expect some treatment that would expose me and ultimately sent out a tweet that said it would be my time in the barrel," he said.
"So I think it's a reasonable assumption - or at least a reasonable conclusion - that Mr Stone had advance warning and the Trump campaign had advance warning about what Assange was going to do...I think there's at least a reasonable belief that Mr Assange may have passed this information onto Mr Stone," Podesta alleged.
The Clinton campaign on Tuesday alleged that many of the emails have been maliciously altered.
"If you are going to write about materials issued by @wikileaks, you should at least state they are a product of illegal hack by a foreign govt," Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon said in a tweet.
"Media needs to stop treating Wikileaks like it is same as FOIA. Assange is colluding with the Russian government to help Trump," he said in another tweet.
"Why would there be this active engagement by the Russians in the DNC and other Democratic organisations, [and] into my private email account? Well, I think you could start by looking at the positions that Mr Trump has taken during the course of this campaign," Podesta said.
"Ones that are more consistent with Russian foreign policy than with US foreign policy," he alleged.