Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says he has no had no contact with WikiLeaks or its founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange.
Speaking via live video to a technology conference in Germany on Tuesday, Snowden was asked about the allegation that he has ties to the website dedicated to leaking secret documents.
“No. This is well established public fact,” he said, adding: “I don’t talk to Julian Assange. I don’t talk to WikiLeaks. I have no relationship with them.”
WikiLeaks has been back in the news in recent weeks after it dumped thousands of documents claiming to be from the CIA’s secret hacking program.
Snowden sent out a number of tweets in response to the leak, saying the document dump “looks authentic.” He said on Tuesday that WikiLeaks’ latest publications “have been a genuine public service.”
While he denied any recent contact with WikiLeaks, Snowden repeated past reports that back in 2013 his legal defense team worked with WikiLeaks to help him escape arrest before he was granted asylum in Russia after he leaked secret information from the NSA’s surveillance programs. As recently as January, Russia said it would extend Snowden’s asylum to 2020.
