Over the last several weeks WikiLeaks has been hyping up the announcement of an ‘October surprise’ and several high profile Trump surrogates took the bate. Trump’s Chief Political Advisor, Roger Stone tweeted on Saturday that “@HillaryClinton is done, #Wikileaks.”
Conservative talk show host Alex Jones tweeted from his InfoWars account that “The Clintons Will Be DEVASTATED,”
The Clintons Will Be DEVASTATED: Infowars Historic LIVE COVERAGE Of #Wikileaks10 Press Conference – Share this link! https://t.co/M4saKik1GO
— infowars (@infowars) October 3, 2016
WikiLeaks founder and leader, Julian Assange has done nothing over the past week to quell the enthusiasm among Trump supporters; if anything he fueled them further by suggesting that his scoops could upend the race with documents “associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting,” during a recent appearance on Fox News.
During the early morning press conference, Assange and other WikiLeaks officials spent over two hours presenting everything except for new information – let alone new information on Hillary Clinton. Instead organization leaders spent the two hours appealing for donations, plugging their books, blasting mainstream media, and even railing against what one leader called the “neo-McCarthyist hysteria” in present day American politics.
Assange went so far as to say “If we are going to make a major publication about the U.S., we wouldn’t do it at 3 a.m.,” referring to the Eastern daylight start time for the event.
Turns out, the press conference that was hailed as the end all – ended nothing at all. The Washington Post and other outlets are reporting this morning that the press conference was “little more than an extended infomercial for WikiLeaks on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of its founding.”
Unsurprisingly, this did not go over well with Trump supporters who stayed up well into the early morning hours to watch the press conference only to find that they’d been played. Following the press conference Alex Jones of InfoWars tweeted using the hashtag #Wikirolled and quite a few others chimed in as well.
Quite a few others chimed in as well. Most notably this one from Scott Ernst:
#OctoberSurprise! #JulianAssange is mean Willy Wonka! pic.twitter.com/FKVvFOyfHD
— DeplorableScottErnst (@RealScottErnst) October 4, 2016
He followed that one with a number of others expressing his extreme disappointment including this one:
#Wikileaks could have easily posted a tweet saying no documents will be released today. They didn’t. They allowed #OctoberSurprise hoax.
— DeplorableScottErnst (@RealScottErnst) October 4, 2016
Another person by the name of Tim Black expressing outrage that WikiLeaks kept him up late to see an infomercial:
Did #julianassange just make me stay up 20 hours straight for him to say see you in November? #wikileaks
— Tim Black ™ (@RealTimBlack) October 4, 2016
In closing, Julian Assange sought to reassure his followers by promising to reveal documents every week for the next 10 weeks. Suggesting that some will have bearing on the U.S. election and coyly saying “We think they’re significant,”.
Only time will tell if in fact conservatives have been “#WikiRolled”, but at least for the time being, WikiLeaks and it’s leader Julian Assange are staying rather tight-lipped about what information the supposed documents might contain. When asked what the documents will reveal and when they will come, Assange had no comment.