Julian Assange is concerned not about any proceedings in Sweden as such, but believe that his deportation to Sweden could lead to politically motivated deportation to the United States, where he could face severe penalties, up to the death sentence, for his activities related to WikiLeaks. On 16 August 2012, Foreign Minister Patiño announced that Ecuador was granting Assange political asylum because of the threat represented by the United States secret investigation against him and several calls for assassination from many American politicians. In its formal statement, Ecuador reasoned that "as a consequence of [Assange's] determined defense to freedom of expression and
Julian Assange claimed that Russian intelligence had hacked the e-mails and leaked them to WikiLeaks. This statement was repeated in the Russian media outlet RT. On 4 October 2016, in a WikiLeaks anniversary meeting in Berlin with Assange teleconferencing from his refuge in the Ecuador embassy in London, reporters spoke of a supposed promise to reveal further information against Hillary Clinton which would bring her candidacy down, calling this information "The October Surprise". On 7 October, Assange posted a press release on WikiLeaks exposing over 2,000 emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The emails, ranging from 2007–2016, revealed excerpts of Clinton's