Do WikiLeaks Emails Confirm that Hillary Clinton Sold Weapons to ISIS?

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Did a new batch of Hillary Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks prove that Clinton sold weapons to ISIS? Not exactly.

According to Snopes, on Oct. 12, WikiLeaks published a series of emails entitled “The Podesta Emails,” which were emails sent to and from Clinton and campaign manager John Podesta. A number of people claimed that based on those emails, the leak proved that Clinton had “sold weapons to ISIS.”

Confusion over where exactly those particular emails were located on WikiLeaks, in addition to an article from The Political Insider titled “WikiLeaks CONFIRMS Hillary Sold Weapons to ISIS… Then Drops Another BOMBSHELL!” further perpetuated the rumor that Clinton had supplied weapons. The article claimed that Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, announced that Clinton and the U.S. State Department were “actively arming Islamic jihadists.” The article went on to claim that the leaks were going to prove that “Clinton deserves to be arrested.”

Snopes goes on to explain that an earlier interview with Assange, in which he referenced prior leaks, claims that actions taken by Clinton and the U.S. State Department resulted in “weapon flows.” In the interview with Democracy Now!, Assange says:

So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone.

However, the emails do not show that Clinton “knowingly arranged for the United States to sell weapons to the jihadist militant group.” Clinton and the U.S. State Department did not sell weapons to ISIS, however, some weapons may have ended up in the hands of groups such Al Qaeda and ISIS.

What are your thoughts on the newly-released WikiLeaks emails? Sound off in the comments section below!

Source: Snopes

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

Source: B2C