Let’s walk through this chain of events today that mixes together Julian Assange, President Trump, Nigel Farage and Sean Spicer.
1. Yesterday, Wikileaks released a trove of documents which purport to document numerous hacking tools used by the CIA. The authenticity of these documents hasn’t been formally confirmed. But all signs suggest they are real. Knowledgable observers say it is a huge setback for the CIA.
2. Around noon today, someone tipped off Buzzfeed (tip is my surmise but how else would they know to be there?) that Nigel Farage was meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London where Assange been holed up since 2012 to avoid questioning and possible arrest on a sexual assault accusation in Sweden. Farage is a close ally and advisor to President Trump. He has been regularly visiting Washington and New York since Trump’s election and meets with Trump regularly. We don’t know what the two men were discussing. But Farage’s whole world right now is Trump, Trump and breaking apart the EU.
3. Some time after noon in London, Farage emerged from the Embassy. Buzzfeed photographed him and asked what he was doing there. Farage refused to say. “I never discuss where I go or who I see.”
4. A short time later, a source with the UK Independence Party, the party Farage until recently led, confirmed to The Independent that Farage was meeting with Assange and had met with him for about 40 minutes.
5. This afternoon UK time, Assange holds a press conference discussing his new batch of CIA documents and promising more revelations.
6. During Sean Spicer’s daily press briefing, an AP reporter asks Spicer about the Farage/Assange meeting and whether he carrying a message from President Trump. Spicer basically ducked the question. But when asked specifically whether Farage was “delivering a message” from Trump, Spicer replied: “I have no idea.”
