Politics

The Pauls and the Leakers Are All Fond of Each Other

With his declaration on Friday that he is "a big fan" of Ron and Rand Paul, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has completed the square of mutual admiration between himself, the Pauls, and Edward Snowden.

By Philip Bump
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With his declaration on Friday that he is "a big fan" of Ron and Rand Paul, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has completed the square of mutual admiration between himself, the Pauls, and Edward Snowden.

Assange's affection for the libertarian duo, reported by the Huffington Post, comes as little surprise. His comments came during a Google chat with the group Campus Reform. As HuffPo transcribed:

"[I] am a big admirer of Ron Paul and Rand Paul for their very principled positions in the U.S. Congress on a number of issues. … They have been the strongest supporters of the fight against the U.S. attack on WikiLeaks and on me in the U.S. Congress. Similarly, they have been the strongest opponents of drone warfare and extrajudicial executions."

That fills in two additional arrows on our brand-new graph.

As for each of those arrows:

  • Ron Paul admires Assange. The then-congressman praised Assange and Wikileaks from the floor of the House in 2010.
  • Assange admires Ron Paul. As he revealed today.
  • Assange admires Rand Paul. See above.
  • Ron and Rand Paul admire each other. We're just sort of assuming on this one.
  • Assange admires Snowden. Before Wikileaks began assisting Snowden's flight from Hong Kong, Assange offered his praise.
  • Rand Paul admires Snowden. He compared Snowden's civil disobediance to Martin Luther King.
  • Snowden admires Ron Paul. When the elder Paul was running for president, Snowden gave to his campaign.

We will obviously update this chart once Rand and Snowden start showing their feelings more.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.