Bill Maher, Julian Assange Real Time interview tackles email hacks

During an interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Real Time with Bill Maher, host Bill Maher was pretty direct: “Why don’t you hack into Donald Trump’s tax returns?”

Maher posited the question referring to WikiLeaks’ recent hack of the Democratic National Committee, which resulted in the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “Well, we’re working on it,” Assange responded.

WikiLeaks backtracked from the founder’s statement shortly after, tweeting, “WikiLeaks isn’t ‘working on’ hacking Trump’s tax-returns. Claim is a joke from a comedy show. We are ‘working on’ encouraging whistleblowers.”

Earlier in the episode, Maher addressed the DNC hack. “Obviously we know these came from Russia and we also know that you don’t like Hillary Clinton, as does not Vladimir Putin,” Maher said. “So it looks like you are working with a bad actor to put your thumb on the scale and basically f— with the one person who stands in the way of us being ruled by Donald Trump.”

In what seemed like a hoped-for gotcha moment, Assange responded by pointing to a $1 million donation Maher made under the name William Maher to “a Clinton-affiliated entity.”

The host, who’s been open about his donation in 2012 to the Obama campaign, said, “I don’t think you have to look in your files to find that, Julian. I gave Obama a million dollars. I made it public. The whole point of it was to make it public so people in 2012 would understand that the game had moved to the million dollar level after our Citizens United ruling.”

When asked if he’d donate another million to Clinton’s campaign, Maher said, “F— no. I can’t give a million dollars anytime somebody runs for president.”

Watch the full interview in the clip above. Real Time with Bill Maher airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on HBO.​

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