The information from Assange's lawyers has been submitted as evidence before next week's court hearing on whether the Wikileaks founder should be extradited to the United States.

The offer must have been made by then-Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher when he visited Assange at the Ecuador Embassy in London in August 2017, where Assange stayed for almost seven years to avoid a Swedish extradition request for sexual offenses.

Deny leaks

The statement from Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson claims: "Rohrabacher met with Assange and said, in accordance with the president's instructions, that he offered a pardon or some other way out if Assange said that Russia had nothing to do with the leaks of the Democratic Party," states The Guardian.

The Russian hacker attacks were a prominent part of the Russian influence operation against the 2016 US presidential election and, according to US intelligence services, aimed to undermine Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and strengthen Trump's chances of winning.

Presumed intermediary

Russian intelligence service is believed to have used Wikileaks as an intermediary to publish e-mails from the Democrats.

Court hearings on the US extradition request begin on Monday and are expected to take several months. The United States claims that Assange has revealed defense secrets and if extradition is granted, he risks up to 175 years in prison.