Assange confirmed on Twitter that Cambridge Analytica reached out to him last year, but said he turned them down.

Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica, reportedly told several people in an email that he had contacted Assange about the 33,000 messages that were deleted from Clinton’s account while she was secretary of state.

It’s unclear what Nix wanted from WikiLeaks, but The Wall Street Journal reported that the firm offered to help index the messages to make them more easily searchable.

This would make it much easier for them to find emails which could be made compromising.

However WikiLeaks already had a searchable database of more than 50,000 Clinton emails when Nix emailed Assange, so it is not clear what he was offering.

However the request does link the Trump campaign more closely to efforts by outside governments to influence the election.

Many of the emails published by WikiLeaks ahead of the election were stolen from Democratic officials by Russian spooks.

Assange has denied any connections to the Kremlin but the fact he only received and published pro-Trump hacks does somewhat weaken his argument.

Last July, Trump publicly asked Russia to find Clinton’s deleted emails.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”, Trump said at a campaign rally.

Cambridge Analytica is partially owned by billionaire Robert Mercer, who initially backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential bid. The firm began working with Trump in July 2016 and was ultimately paid more than $5 million prior to the November election.

Nix emailed Rebekah Mercer, Robert Mercer’s daughter, to say he had reached out to WikiLeaks and lodged the database offer.