Ku Klux Klan veteran hails Wikileaks for Trump victory

A former 'grand wizard' of the white supemacist Ku Klux Klan movement has thanked Julian Assange and his Wikileaks group for aiding the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, saying it was "one of the most exciting nights of my life".

David Duke, the founder of the Knights of the KKK, a group accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, on Wednesday described Assange as a “hero” for Wikileaks' release of tens of thousands of Hillary Clinton emails taken from an insecure private email server she used while secretary of state.

The emails were a permanent thorn in the side of the Clinton campaign - the Democratic contender was cleared of criminal wrongdoing earlier this year, only for the FBI to announce it was investigating a new batch of emails in early November.

Less than a week before the election, the organisation said the new batch contained no evidence of criminal conduct by Clinton, but Trump was able to use the ongoing row in his speeches and bolster his claims that Clinton was "crooked".

A series of Clinton emails from 2010 suggested that the Obama administration knew Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two of the US's biggest Gulf allies, were among the prime funders of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Duke also congratulated Trump on his victory, posting a picture on Twitter of the president-elect astride an M1 Abrams tank and holding a high-powered rifle. Duke said Trump had the chance to become "one of the greatest Americans".

Duke told followers: “Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!”

Duke backed Trump late last year, telling listeners to his radio show: "The Jewish knives are coming out on Donald Trump … How come it’s against American values to want to preserve the heritage of the country? We’re overwhelmingly a Christian country and overwhelmingly a European country."

Duke is also the author of books called “Jewish Supremacism” and “My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding”.

The official newspaper of the KKK, the Crusader, embraced Trump’s campaign and used his slogan, “make America great again”.

Assange has resided for years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he sought asylum to avoid deportation to Sweden to face questioning over sex assault allegations.

He claims he would be deported from Sweden to the US over leaked US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks in 2010 and other material which exposed US violations of international law during the Iraq war.

The material was given to his organisation by Chelsea Manning, who is now serving a 35-year prison sentence in the US and has attempted to take her own life.

Assange has not replied to Duke's posts. In an interview on Monday with the Russian state broadcaster RT, he defended his organisation's actions against Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false.”

“I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick.”