WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange officially failed to deliver on the "October surprise" (or #OctoberSurprise) that anti-Hillary Clinton voters were promised by superstar right-wing conspiracy theorists Alex Jones and Roger Stone.
Assange alongside other WikiLeaks bigwigs hosted a highly anticipated press conference on Tuesday that many believed would upend the current presidential race. Stone — a Trump adviser — tweeted the following on Saturday:
Then on Monday:
The nearly two-hour-long presser turned out, however, to be the crypto-anarchist equivalent of a NPR pledge drive. Assange and comrades, according to The Washington Post, "railed against 'neo-McCarthyist hysteria,' blasted the mainstream press, appealed for donations and plugged their books ('40 percent off!')."
The most important announcement made during the press conference — that, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, WikiLeaks would publish new leaks every week for the next 10 weeks — could fit into one tweet, with plenty of characters to spare.
"Julian Assange trolling the world is Hillary’s October surprise," Jones responded on his radio show on Tuesday. "He was promising this damning evidence and he doesn’t release it now 34 days out and now he’s saying he’ll release it by the end of the year so that smacks of a sellout. . . . I think he’s probably out of documents."
Still, the Infowars founder encouraged Assange to release those documents that he probably doesn't have:
Stone, however, told The Daily Beast via email that Assange had "not at all" promised a bombshell, adding that the hyped lead-up was the result of "wishful thinking" on the part of the media.
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