Rep Dana Rohrabacher Meets With WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

Rohrabacher's spokesman Ken Grubbs confirmed that the meeting took place and that Johnson was in attendance. Grubbs declined to elaborate on Johnson's relationship with Rohrabacher.

Johnson, who is known for being banned from Twitter after he asked users for help "taking out" a civil rights activist, said that he and Assange attorney Jennifer Robinson also were in the meeting.

After TheDC broke the news of the meeting, Rohrabacher put out a statement in which he said Assange "emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails".

The California Republican said Assange told him Wednesday he was not behind the leak of Democratic National Committee emails last summer that ultimately led to the resignation of then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz at the start of the party's convention to nominate Hillary Clinton.

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies have agreed Russian Federation was involved in the theft of Democratic Party emails and tried to influence the 2016 election to benefit Trump. "[H] e is open to further discussions regarding specific information about the DNC email incident", the U.S. congressman said.

The conversation between Rohrabacher and Assange "ranged over many topics", according to the statement.

Prior to the Daily Caller reporting on it, the meeting had not been announced by Rohrabacher's camp. "He can't even leave the embassy to get out to Washington to talk to anybody if he doesn't have a pardon".

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy since August 2012 after he was accused of sexual assault in Sweden. While charges of Assange have been dropped, he could still be extradited on charges of violating his bail terms.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange commented Thursday on media reports about his recent meeting with United States congressman Dana Rohrabacher, saying that he never communicates with the public through third persons and only his direct statements should be considered reliable.

Shortly after the trip was revealed, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called for Rohrabacher to step down from his post on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he chairs a subcommittee on Eurasian affairs.