In July, CNN published what it billed as a bombshell about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

CNN claimed to show how Assange published stolen Democratic Party emails in the summer of 2016,

in cooperation with the Russian government, all from his place of refuge in Ecuador's London Embassy.

In stunning new detail, hundreds of security reports, videos, and photos obtained exclusively

by CNN and verified by an Ecuadorian intelligence official, describe how Assange released

stolen democratic emails directly from the embassy and who he met with, world-class

hackers and Russians tied to the Kremlin. Those who promoted Russiagate conspiracy theories

naturally portrayed the CNN report as explosive. We had known that the intelligence community

had said that WikiLeaks was operating as a cutout for Russian intelligence. We had never had any narrative before about how exactly they did it. We just had WikiLeaks denials.

This new open source reporting puts in the missing pieces of not just that Russia tried to help

elect Trump and not just why Russia tried to elect Trump, but the actual nuts and bolts of how

they did it. From the clandestine meetings to the Trump. But the actual nuts and bolts of how they did it,

from the clandestine meetings to the data transfers,

to the disguises and the surveillance footage.

But in reality, CNN's report was full of smears and errors.

In fact, my next guest has counted 40 of them.

And he is in a position to know.

Fidel Narvaez is a former Ecuadorian diplomat who served as consul and then first secretary

at the Ecuadorian embassy in London from 2010 until July 2018 while Julian Assange was a political refugee there. Fidel Navarez has just published a new piece here at the Grey Zone.

It's called 40 Rebuttals to the Media Smears of Julian Assange by someone who was actually there.

Welcome, Fidel to Pushback.

Talk to us first about why you decided to write this piece. As you point out,

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