Hit by hackers, Clinton camp blasts Julian Assange for helping Trump, as email leaks continue

The head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, John Podesta, slammed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday for helping Republican rival Donald Trump in the bitter White House race, while accusing Moscow of being behind the hacking of his personal email account.

The anti-secrecy website has published thousands of emails from John Podesta’s Gmail account since Friday, allegedly having obtained them from by Russian hackers.

While there have been no major damaging revelations, the massive leak does lift the veil on Team Clinton’s inner workings.

Podesta described the timing of the leak - released late Friday - as a “curious coincidence”, coming shortly after The Washington Post published a shock video of Donald Trump making lewd boasts about grabbing women by their genitals in 2005.

The veteran political aide, who served in the Obama and Bill Clinton administrations, suggested that the release “was their countermove to try to take the public’s attention off the despicable things that Donald Trump said on that video.”