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Assange lines up #OctoberSurprise to shake up U.S. election

WikiLeaks set to release 1 million documents by end of 2016.

Gianluca Mezzofiore

on October 4, 2016

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has hinted at the release of about 1 million documents before the end of the year, some of them "significant" to the upcoming U.S. election.

In a press conference for the 10th anniversary of the whistleblower site, Assange pledged to release publications every week for the next 10 weeks related to arms trading, Google, mass surveillance and oil. All documents related to the U.S. presidential election will be published before the vote on Nov. 8.

"If we’re going to make a major publication in the U.S. at a particular hour, we won’t do it at 3am," he said.

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Assange denied the release of documents was aimed at damaging Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "I've been misquoted on this publication. They said we intend to harm Hillary Clinton. That's false," he said. "The upcoming publication is significant to the U.S. elections."

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Assange, who has been living in London's Ecuador Embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, also announced changes in the way WikiLeaks is funded, saying the group would soon open itself up to membership.

"Wikileaks needs to change in order to survive and thrive in the next few months," he said.

Commenting on the U.S. election, Assange said: "I feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They are two people that are tormented by their ambitions."

He also pledged to create "an army" to defend the site against outside pressure. "We have engaged in a new project to recruit people across the world to defend our publications (...) We are going to need an army."

However, people on Twitter were disappointed that the release was not immediate and started mocking WikiLeaks using the hashtag #OctoberSurprise: