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    Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

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    The WikiLeaks founder, who entered the plea in a U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific, now plans to fly home to Australia.Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. It was all part of an agreement allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody — most of it fighting extradition to the United States.His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial.His wife, Stella, posted an urgent fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost of the flight, which she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government. She also wrote on X that watching a video of Mr. Assange entering the courtroom made her think of “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high-security Belmarsh prison cell.”In court, Mr. Assange responded carefully to questions from U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. He defended his actions, describing himself as a journalist seeking information from sources, a task he said he saw as legal and constitutionally protected. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Guardian view on the WikiLeaks plea deal: good for Julian Assange, not journalism | Editorial

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      Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage by the US. The release of the WikiLeaks founder from custody in the UK is good news, and it is especially welcome to his family and supporters. He is due to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents at a hearing early on Wednesday, but is not expected to face further jail time. The court in Saipan, a remote Pacific island which is a US territory, is expected to approve the deal, crediting him for the five years he has already spent on remand in prison.His opportunity to live with his young family comes thanks to Australian diplomacy under the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who had made clear his desire for a resolution, and the Biden administration’s keenness to get a controversial case off its plate, particularly in an election year. Seventeen of the charges have been dropped. The one that remains, however, is cause for serious alarm. It was the Trump administration that brought this case. But while the Biden administration has dropped 17 of the 18 charges, it insisted on a charge under the 1917 Espionage Act, rather than the one first brought against him of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.This is no triumph for press freedom. Mr Assange’s plea has prevented the setting of a frightening judicial precedent for journalists, avoiding a decision that might bind future courts. Nonetheless, this is the first conviction for basic journalistic efforts under the 1917 act.Using espionage charges was always a bad and cynical move. The case relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks working with the Guardian and other media organisations. They revealed appalling abuses by the US and other governments, which would not otherwise have been exposed – and for which no one has been held liable, despite the pursuit of Mr Assange.National security laws are necessary. But it is also necessary to acknowledge that governments keep secrets for bad reasons as well as good. Alarmingly, the Espionage Act allows no public interest defence, preventing defendants from discussing the material leaked, why they shared it, and why they believe the public should know about it. The Obama administration correctly identified the chilling effect that spying charges could have on investigative journalism, and chose not to bring them on that basis. The Biden administration – which proclaims itself a champion of press freedom globally – should not have pursued them. The UK government should never have agreed to Mr Assange’s extradition.The bad news is that the prosecutorial policy is now clear. Federal prosecutors can chalk this one up as a win. It is possible that future administrations could take this case as encouragement to pursue the press under the Espionage Act. It is likely that an emboldened second Trump administration would do so. The Republican candidate has repeatedly cast the media as his “real opponent” and the enemy of the people.The political solution to this lengthy saga is welcome, particularly given the reported impact on Mr Assange’s health after years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy and then in Belmarsh prison. But the threat to press freedom has not ended. Its defence cannot rest either. More

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      in US Politics

      At last, Julian Assange is free. But it may have come at a high price for press freedom | Trevor Timm

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      Julian Assange is on the verge of being set free after the WikiLeaks founder and US authorities have agreed to a surprising plea deal. While it should be a relief to anyone who cares about press freedom that Assange will not be coming to the US to face trial, the Biden administration should be ashamed at how this case has played out.Assange is flying from the UK to a US territory in the Pacific Ocean to make a brief court appearance today, and soon after, he may officially be a free man in his native Australia.The deal is undoubtedly good for Assange, who has been holed up in Belmarsh prison suffering from serious medical problems for the past five years, and stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years prior to that. It’s good for the Biden administration, which avoids the embarrassment of potentially losing its extradition case in the UK high court, but more importantly avoids the Assange case becoming a polarising issue in the election.But is the deal good for press freedom? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong: there’s no doubt the worst fate was avoided and every journalist breathed a sigh of relief that this result did not occur via a court decision. A plea deal does not create an official precedent that a conviction and appeals court ruling would – something that could have potentially binded other courts to rule against journalists in future cases.But it’s hard not to be shaken by the charge the US justice department forced Assange to plea to in order to get his freedom: a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, which according to the law, amounts to “receiving and obtaining” secret documents, and “willfully communicating” them “to persons not entitled to receive them”. (In Assange’s case, that means the public). That is a “crime” that journalists at mainstream outlets all over the US commit virtually every day.A court won’t readily be able to cite DoJ v Assange in future rulings, but that doesn’t mean this guilty plea won’t embolden future federal prosecutors with an axe to grind against the press. They will see this case as a success. And it doesn’t mean the legal arms of news outlets won’t now be worried a case can be brought against their own journalists for ordinary journalistic conduct that was once assuredly protected by the first amendment.Just imagine what an attorney general in a second Trump administration will think, knowing they’ve already got one guilty plea from a publisher under the Espionage Act. Trump, after all, has been out on the campaign trail repeatedly opining about how he would like to see journalists – who he sees as “enemies of the people” – in jail. Why the Biden administration would hand him any ammo is beyond belief.So if the Biden administration is looking for plaudits for ending this case, they should get exactly none. They could have dropped this case three years ago when they took control of the DoJ. Every major civil liberties and human rights group in the country repeatedly implored them to. They could have just dropped the case today, with Assange spending the same amount of time in prison, but they felt the need to again emphasise in court documents that they believe obtaining and publishing secret government documents is a crime.Of course, some will say, “oh, Assange got what he deserved,” or “he’s no journalist, why should I care,” as people do whenever you bring up the inconvenient fact that prosecuting Assange will affect countless other journalists. Assange made himself the permanent enemy of millions of Democratic voters after publishing leaked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign in the run-up to the 2016 election, and many people can’t see past that. But it’s worth repeating that this case had nothing at all to do with 2016. And whether you think Assange is a “journalist” or not, the DoJ wanted him convicted under the Espionage Act for acts of journalism, which would leave many reporters, including at the Guardian, exposed to the same.Now we can only hope this case is an aberration and not a harbinger of things to come.
      Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation More

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      in US Politics

      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene unite in push to free Julian Assange

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      Maga Republican and fierce Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and leftwing Democratic firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have found common ground in freeing Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.The pair are among 16 members of the US Congress who have written directly to president Joe Biden urging the United States to drop its extradition attempts against Assange and halt any prosecutorial proceedings immediately.The group warns continuing the pursuit of Assange risks America’s bilateral relationship with Australia.“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of the government,” the letter to Biden, first reported by Nine newspapers, states.“The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalising common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible.”Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London as he fights a US attempt to extradite him to face charges – including under the Espionage Act. The charges are in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, in 2010 and 2011.
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      In September, a cross-party delegation of Australian MPs, which included former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, teal independent Monique Ryan, Greens senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, conservative Alex Antic and Labor’s Tony Zappia, travelled to America to meet with US representatives over Assange’s case.The group hoped to gain support from American lawmakers in their bid to have the pursuit of Assange dropped ahead of Anthony Albanese’s official visit to Washington.Since coming to power, the Albanese government has been more forward than its predecessors in pushing for Assange’s freedom, but so far the Biden government has rebuffed the calls.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlbanese confirmed he raised Assange’s case again during his meeting with Biden at the White House last month, but Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, urged the Australian government to increase the pressure.Shipton told Guardian Australia: “If this government can get back Cheng Lei from China, why is he so impotent when it comes to Julian and the USA?”With Assange’s avenues for legal appeal against the US extradition diminishing, his supporters fear for his life. More

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      in World Politics

      Washington’s Tawdry Victory Over Julian Assange

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      Last week witnessed the 80th anniversary of a moment in history qualified by Franklin D. Roosevelt as “a date which will live in infamy.” On December 8, 1941, the president announced that the United States was declaring war after Japan’s unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a day earlier. A nation that had spent two decades wallowing in isolationism instantly became one of the principal and most powerful actors in a new world war. Victory on two fronts, against Germany and Japan, would be achieved successively in 1944 and 1945.

      Last week ended with its own day of infamy when a British court overturned an earlier judgment banning the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department successfully appealed the ban in its relentless effort to judge Assange for violating the 1917 Espionage Act, itself a relic of the history of the First World War.

      Guns and the Wrong Side of Rights

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      Back then, President Woodrow Wilson’s government pulled no jingoistic punches when promoting America’s participation in Europe’s war. It actively incited the population to indulge in xenophobia. Public paranoia targeting Germany, the nation’s enemy, reached such a pitch that Beethoven was banned from the concert stage, sauerkraut was officially renamed “liberty cabbage” and hamburger “liberty steak.”

      The manifestly paranoid Espionage Act sought to punish anyone who “communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver or transmit to any foreign government … any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, etc.” The law, specifically for a state of war, was so extreme it was rarely used until Barack Obama unearthed it as the elegant solution for suppressing the whistleblowers he had vowed to defend in his first presidential campaign.

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      Despite overindulging his taste for punishing whistleblowers, Obama refrained from seeking to extradite Assange. He feared it might appear as an assault on freedom of the press and might even incriminate The New York Times, which had published the WikiLeaks documents in 2010. In the meantime, Democrats found a stronger reason to blame Assange. He had leaked the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential primary campaign. Democrats blamed the Australian for electing Donald Trump.

      During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for its willingness to expose the undemocratic practices of the Clinton campaign. But once in power, Trump’s administration vindictively demanded Assange’s extradition from the UK for having revealed war crimes that deserved being hidden for eternity from the prying eyes of journalists and historians. 

      Many observers expected Biden to return to the prudent wisdom of Obama and break with Trump’s vindictive initiative. He could have quietly accepted the British judge’s decision pronounced in January. Instead, his Justice Department appealed. Unlike Trump, who sought to undermine everything Obama had achieved, Biden has surprisingly revealed a deep, largely passive respect for his predecessor’s most dangerous innovations — not challenging corporate tax cuts, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and Trump’s aggressive support for Israel’s most oppressive policies with regard to Palestinians.

      Biden’s eagerness to follow Trump’s gambit aimed at subjecting Assange to the US brand of military-style justice allowed New York Times journalists Megan Specia and Charlie Savage to describe Friday’s decision by the British court as a success for the administration. “The ruling was a victory,” they wrote, “at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Victory:

      Triumph in combat, including, at two extremes, cases marked by heroic action and others prompted by malicious self-serving motives and driven by the perpetrator’s confusion of the idea of justice with sadistic, vindictive pleasure

      Contextual Note

      The Times journalists quote Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, who “said the government was ‘pleased by the ruling’ and would have no further comment.” At no point in the article do the authors evoke the hypothesis that Biden might have sought to overturn Trump’s policy. Nor do they analyze the reasons that could undermine the government’s case. They do quote several of Assange’s supporters, including one who called “on the Biden administration again to withdraw” the charge. Serious observers of the media might expect that a pillar of the press in a liberal democracy might be tempted to express its own concern with laws and policies that risk threatening its own freedom. Not The New York Times. This story didn’t even make its front page. None of its columnists deemed it deserving of comment.

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      Journalist Kalinga Seneviratne, writing for The Manila Times, offered a radical contrast. “If this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is about promoting ‘press freedom,’” he speculates, “the Norwegian Nobel Committee missed a golden opportunity to make a powerful statement at a time when such freedom is under threat in the very countries that have traditionally claimed a patent on it.” He quotes the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, who claims that “what has been done to Julian Assange is not to punish or coerce him, but to silence him and to do so in broad daylight, making visible to the entire world that those who expose the misconduct of the powerful no longer enjoy the protection of the law.” 

      Deutsche Welle’s Matthias von Hein noted the interesting coincidence that three converging events took place on the same day. “In a bitter twist of irony,” he writes, “a court in London has essentially paved the way for Assange’s prosecution on Human Rights Day — of all days. And how ironic that it happened on the day two journalists were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Last, but not least, it coincided with the second day of the Summit on Democracy organized by US President Joe Biden.”

      Von Hein added this observation: “We’re constantly hearing how Western democracies are in competition with autocratic systems. If Biden is serious about that, he should strive to be better than the world’s dictators.” But, as the saying goes, you can’t teach a 79-year old dog new tricks.

      Historical Note

      The coincidences do not end there. On the same day the news of Julian Assange’s fate emerged, Yahoo’s investigative reporter Michael Isikoff recounted the story of another man “brought to justice” by US authorities: Mohamedou Ould Slahi. The Mauritanian citizen had the privilege of spending 14 years in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba without ever being charged with a crime, even after confessing to the crimes imagined by his torturers.

      It turns out to be a touching moral tale. Even after years of imprisonment and gruesome torture, Slahi “holds no personal animus against his interrogators.” According to Isikoff, “he has even met and bonded with some of those interrogators,” years after the event. “I took it upon myself,” Slahi explained, “to be a nice person and took a vow of kindness no matter what. And you cannot have a vow of kindness without forgiving people.”

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      It wasn’t the Prophet Muhammad who said, “turn the other cheek” or “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Those words were spoken by the man George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld claimed to revere and whom Bush considered his “favorite philosopher.” The Quran did continue the original Christian insight, pronouncing that “retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it,” and that reconciliation and forgiveness will be rewarded by Allah.

      There has clearly been no forgiveness in Washington for the “evil” committed by Assange: exposing war crimes conducted in secret with American taxpayers’ money. Slahi’s torture was conducted by the declared proponents of “Judeo-Christian” culture. Shahi’s forgiveness stands as an example of what that culture claims as a virtue but fails to embrace in its own actions.

      Shahi is reconciled with his interrogators. But does he also feel reconciled with those who gave them their orders? In 2019, he said, “I accept that the United States should follow and put to trial all the people who are harming their citizens. I agree with that. But I disagree with them that if they suspect you, they kidnap you, they torture you, and let you rot in prison for 15 or 16 years. And then they dump you in your country and they say you cannot have your passport because you have already seen so many things that we don’t want you to travel around the world to talk about.”

      Despite appearances, Mohamedou Ould Shahi’s case is not all that different from Julian Assange’s.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      US government appeals UK ruling against Julian Assange's extradition

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      The US government has appealed a UK judge’s ruling against the extradition of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, according to a justice department official.The appeal made clear that Joe Biden intends to have Assange stand trial on espionage- and hacking-related charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents.The justice department had until Friday to file an appeal against the ruling on 4 January that Assange suffered mental health problems that would raise the risk of suicide were he extradited to the US for trial.“Yes, we filed an appeal and we are continuing to pursue extradition,” a justice department spokesperson, Marc Raimondi, told AFP.Human rights groups had called on Biden to drop the case, which raises sensitive transparency and media freedom issues.After WikiLeaks began publishing US secrets in 2009, the Obama administration – in which Biden was vice-president – declined to pursue the case. Assange said WikiLeaks was no different than other media outlets constitutionally protected to publish such materials.Prosecuting him could mean also prosecuting powerful US news organisations for publishing similar material – legal fights the government would probably lose.But under Donald Trump, whose 2016 election was helped by WikiLeaks publishing Russian-stolen materials damaging to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, the justice department built a national security case against Assange.In 2019, Assange, an Australian national, was charged under the US Espionage Act and computer crimes laws on multiple counts of conspiring with and directing others, from 2009 to 2019, to illegally obtain and release US secrets.In doing so he aided and abetted hacking, illegally exposed confidential US sources to danger and used the information to damage the US, according to the charges. If convicted on all counts, the 49-year-old faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years.John Demers, an assistant attorney general, said at the time: “Julian Assange is no journalist.”Assange has remained under detention by UK authorities pending the appeal.This week 24 organisations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA and Reporters Without Borders, urged Biden to drop the case.“Journalists at major news publications regularly speak with sources, ask for clarification or more documentation, and receive and publish documents the government considers secret,” they said in an open letter. “In our view, such a precedent in this case could effectively criminalise these common journalistic practices.” More

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      in Elections

      Biden Administration Urged to Drop Julian Assange Case

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCivil-Liberties Groups Ask Biden Justice Dept. to Drop Julian Assange CaseA Friday deadline in the London extradition case may force the Biden administration to decide whether to keep pursuing a Trump-era policy.The Trump administration had sought to have the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange extradited to the United States to face a trial on potentially precedent-setting Espionage Act charges.Credit…Matt Dunham/Associated PressFeb. 8, 2021Updated 3:58 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — A coalition of civil liberties and human rights groups urged the Biden administration on Monday to drop efforts to extradite the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain and prosecute him, calling the Trump-era case against him “a grave threat to press freedom.”The coalition sent a letter urging a change in course before a Friday deadline for the Justice Department to file a brief in a London court. American prosecutors are due to explain in detail their decision — formally lodged on Jan. 19, the last full day of the Trump administration — to appeal a ruling blocking their request to extradite Mr. Assange.The litigation deadline may force the new administration to confront a decision: whether to press on with the Trump-era approach to Mr. Assange, or to instead drop the matter.Democrats like the new Biden team are no fan of Mr. Assange, whose publication in 2016 of Democratic emails stolen by Russia aided Donald J. Trump’s narrow victory over Hillary Clinton. But the charges center instead on his 2010 publication of American military and diplomatic documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, and they raise profound First Amendment issues.“The indictment of Mr. Assange threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely — and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do,” the letter said, adding: “News organizations frequently and necessarily publish classified information in order to inform the public of matters of profound public significance.”The Freedom of the Press Foundation organized the letter. Other signers — about two dozen groups — included the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Project on Government Oversight and Reporters Without Borders.“Most of the charges against Assange concern activities that are no different from those used by investigative journalists around the world every day,” Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a separate statement. “President Biden should avoid setting a terrible precedent by criminalizing key tools of independent journalism that are essential for a healthy democracy.”For now, the Justice Department remains committed to appealing the denial of its request to extradite Mr. Assange, said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for its National Security Division.The deadline to either continue working to extradite Mr. Assange by filing the brief or drop the matter reflects a common legal policy dilemma when a new administration takes over and confronts matters inherited from its predecessor. Newly installed officials face too many issues to make careful decisions on all at once, so some get punted.But litigation calendars can force early decisions about whether to proceed or shift direction in some cases. It is often easier to stay the course, based on an argument that the issue can be revisited later when there is more time. But once the new administration has started down that path, it owns the policy as a matter of political and bureaucratic reality and so can effectively get locked in.Complicating matters for making any decision to keep or jettison the Trump-era policy to go after Mr. Assange with criminal charges, the Biden administration’s intended leadership team is not yet in place at the Justice Department. The Senate has yet to confirm Mr. Biden’s nominee to be attorney general, Judge Merrick B. Garland.In the meantime, the department is being temporarily led by a caretaker career official, Monty Wilkinson, the acting attorney general to whom the letter was addressed.After Mr. Assange published the documents provided by Ms. Manning in 2010, the Obama administration engaged in extensive deliberations under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. over whether to prosecute Mr. Assange but never charged him with a crime.By contrast, Ms. Manning, a low-level Army intelligence analyst who downloaded the archives of documents and sent them to WikiLeaks, was convicted at a court-martial trial in 2013 of leaking the documents and sentenced to 35 years in prison. President Barack Obama commuted most of the remainder of her sentence in 2017.But law enforcement officials under Mr. Obama shied away from bringing charges against Mr. Assange. They feared that there was no legally meaningful way to distinguish his actions from those of conventional investigative national-security journalism as practiced by mainstream news organizations like The New York Times. The Obama team did not want to create a precedent that could chill or cripple traditional journalism, according to people familiar with its deliberations.In March 2018, however, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump Justice Department obtained a grand jury indictment against Mr. Assange. It initially sidestepped press freedom issues by narrowly accusing him of participating in a hacking-related criminal conspiracy with Ms. Manning, rather than focusing on his publication of government secrets.That indictment was unsealed in April 2019, when Mr. Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and arrested. (He had taken refuge there in 2012, initially to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questions about sexual assault accusations, which he has denied. Sweden had rescinded its arrest warrant for Mr. Assange in 2017.)The Justice Department — by then under Attorney General William P. Barr — then obtained a superseding indictment expanding the charges against Mr. Assange to include allegations that his journalistic-style activities violated the Espionage Act. A second superseding indictment later added more allegations related to the notion of a hacking conspiracy.Notably, there is some overlap in personnel from earlier internal debates about the dilemma raised by Mr. Assange. The top national security official in the Trump Justice Department, John C. Demers, remains in place atop its National Security Division for now; the Biden transition asked him to temporarily stay on for continuity purposes even as most other Trump political appointees resigned.Mr. Demers’s predecessor from 2013 to 2016, John Carlin, has returned to the Justice Department and is currently serving as the acting deputy attorney general. Mr. Carlin’s predecessor, Lisa O. Monaco, who ran the National Security Division from 2011 to 2013, is Mr. Biden’s nominee to be deputy attorney general but has not yet been confirmed.The letter from the rights groups portrayed the Trump-era Justice Department’s decision to proceed against Mr. Assange as jeopardizing journalism “that is crucial to democracy” more broadly, and noted that the Trump administration had “positioned itself as an antagonist to the institution of a free and unfettered press in numerous ways.”They added: “We are deeply concerned about the way that a precedent created by prosecuting Assange could be leveraged — perhaps by a future administration — against publishers and journalists of all stripes.”Since the original indictment was unsealed, lawyers for Mr. Assange have fought the extradition request, arguing that the United States was prosecuting him for political reasons.A British judge in January largely rejected those arguments, holding that he had been charged “in good faith.” But she denied his extradition anyway — citing harsh conditions for security-related prisoners in American jails and the risk that Mr. Assange might be driven to commit suicide. It is that rationale that the brief due on Friday would appeal.Elian Peltier More

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      in Elections

      With Trump Presidency Winding Down, Push for Assange Pardon Ramps Up

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith Trump Presidency Winding Down, Push for Assange Pardon Ramps UpSupporters of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have enlisted a lobbyist with connections to the president and filed a clemency petition with the White House.The effort comes at a delicate moment for Julian Assange; the Justice Department announced last week that it would appeal a British judge’s ruling blocking his extradition to the United States.Credit…Henry Nicholls/ReutersJan. 10, 2021, 6:53 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Allies of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have ramped up a push for a last-minute pardon from President Trump, enlisting a lobbyist with connections to the administration, trying to rally supporters across the political spectrum and filing a clemency petition with the White House.The effort comes at a delicate moment for Mr. Assange and during a period of tension between the United States and Britain over a case that his supporters say has substantial implications for press freedoms.The Justice Department announced last week that it would appeal a British judge’s ruling blocking the extradition of Mr. Assange to the United States to face trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack government computers. The charges stemmed from WikiLeaks’s publication in 2010 of classified documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Mr. Assange’s supporters had been optimistic about the prospects of a pardon from Mr. Trump, who has issued dozens of contentious clemency grants since losing his re-election bid. But they now worry that pressure over his supporters’ ransacking of the Capitol last week could derail plans for additional clemencies before he leaves office on Jan. 20.As unlikely as the prospect of a pardon from Mr. Trump might be, Mr. Assange’s supporters are eager to try before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.As vice president, Mr. Biden called the WikiLeaks founder a “high-tech terrorist.” Some of his top advisers blame Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks for helping Mr. Trump win the presidency in 2016 by publishing emails from Democrats associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which U.S. officials say were stolen by Russian intelligence to damage her candidacy. Mr. Trump has long downplayed Russia’s role in the 2016 election.For Mr. Assange’s supporters and press freedom advocates, though, the issues at stake transcend him or politics.“This is so much bigger than Julian,” said Mark Davis, a former journalist who worked with Mr. Assange in Australia, where they are from. If Mr. Assange is prosecuted, “it will have a chilling effect on all national security journalism,” Mr. Davis said, adding: “If we can get Julian off, then the precedent hasn’t been set. If Julian goes down, then it’s bad for all of us.”Mr. Davis, who is now a lawyer specializing in national security and whistle-blower cases, is on the board of Blueprint for Free Speech, an Australia-based nonprofit group that advocates for press freedoms and whistle-blower protections. The group, which was started by Suelette Dreyfus, a former journalist who is an old friend and collaborator with Mr. Assange, signed a pro bono contract on Saturday with the lobbyist Robert Stryk to seek a pardon for Mr. Assange.During Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Stryk, who is well connected in Trump administration circles, has developed a lucrative business representing foreign clients in precarious geopolitical situations.He has worked for a jailed Saudi prince who had fallen out of favor with his country’s powerful de facto leader, as well as the administration of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, which the Trump administration considers illegitimate. Mr. Styrk also worked for Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president, who is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from a state oil company she once headed, as well as the government of the former Congolese president Joseph Kabila, which had faced American sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption.Mr. Stryk said that he was representing Blueprint for Free Speech to seek a pardon for Mr. Assange without pay because of his belief in free speech, and that he would continue pushing for the pardon in the Biden administration if Mr. Trump did not grant it.“This is not a partisan issue,” Mr. Stryk said.The contract, which he said he had disclosed to the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, calls for his company, Stryk Global Diplomacy, to “facilitate meetings and interactions with the president and the president-elect’s administrations” to “obtain a full pardon” for Mr. Assange.Mr. Davis said Mr. Stryk had been chosen partly because of his entree into Mr. Trump’s administration, which the group sees as its best chance to secure a pardon.Mr. Davis noted that Mr. Assange, 49, was indicted during Mr. Trump’s presidency. “We are unabashedly reaching out to the Republican Party on this issue in the final weeks to correct something before it’s too late, and before it become part of Trump’s legacy,” Mr. Davis said.He said, “If Joe Biden is sympathetic, that’s well and good, and we certainly hope he is.” But, he added, “it’s a far simpler process for an outgoing president than an incoming president.”Mr. Assange’s cause has been taken up by a range of media freedom and human rights organizations, public officials and celebrities, including the actress Pamela Anderson.Blueprint for Free Speech is working to harness some of that support, including from Ms. Anderson, a friend of Mr. Assange, who said in an interview that she had been trying to connect with Mr. Trump to plead the case. “I just hate to see him deteriorate in jail right now,” she said of Mr. Assange, describing the pardon push as “a last-ditch effort for all of us who are Julian Assange supporters.”Asked about the effort by Blueprint, Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer representing Mr. Assange, said he “is encouraged by and supports efforts” by a variety of prominent supporters around the world.Mr. Davis stressed that Blueprint’s push was independent of parallel efforts by Mr. Assange’s family and his lawyers, though Mr. Stryk has been in contact with Barry J. Pollack, Mr. Assange’s Washington-based lawyer, who is representing him against the criminal charges.Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Assange unlawfully obtained secret documents and put lives at risk by revealing the names of people who had provided information to the United States in war zones.Mr. Assange’s lawyers have framed the prosecution as a politically driven attack on press freedom.Last month, Mr. Pollack filed a petition for a pardon with the White House Counsel’s Office, which has been vetting clemency requests for Mr. Trump, arguing that Mr. Assange was “being prosecuted for his news gathering and publication of truthful information.”Mr. Pollack declined to comment on the petition, which was obtained by The New York Times, except to say that it was pending.The petition appears to be geared toward appealing to Mr. Trump, who has wielded the unchecked presidential clemency power to aid people with personal connections to him or whose causes resonate with him politically, including a handful of people ensnared in the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and ties to his campaign.The petition highlighted that the charges against Mr. Assange stemmed from WikiLeaks’s publication of material that “exposed misconduct committed in Iraq and Afghanistan during wars initiated by a prior administration.” And it notes that the Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016, which showed some in the party apparatus conspiring to sabotage the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont and Mrs. Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, resulted in the resignations of party officials.The petition does not address the United States government’s findings about Russia’s role in the theft of the emails as part of its effort to undermine Mrs. Clinton, which has long been a sore spot for Mr. Trump.The petition notes that the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who provided the military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks that led to the charges against Mr. Assange, was commuted by President Barack Obama in the final days of his term.Like Mr. Assange’s lawyers in Britain, Mr. Pollack’s petition raises concerns about Mr. Assange’s health, noting that the prison in which he is being held has been under lockdown after a coronavirus outbreak.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Guardian view on Julian Assange's extradition ruling: relief, not victory | Editorial

      by

      Donald Trump is using his last days in office to pardon those who do not deserve it. Among the most egregious recipients are the Blackwater security guards responsible for the Nisour Square massacre – the killing of unarmed civilians, including children, in Iraq. The president’s deplorable decision fits a pattern: just over a year ago, he pardoned a former army lieutenant found guilty of murder after ordering his men to fire at three Afghans, and a former US army commando facing trial over the killing of a suspected bombmaker.
      There has been no such mercy shown to a man whom the US is pursuing after he cast an unforgiving light on its abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Julian Assange’s future is dependent on the decisions of British courts. On Monday, district judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that the WikiLeaks founder could not be extradited to the US, where he has been charged under the Espionage Act, including for publishing classified material.
      But she rejected defence arguments that the prosecution had misrepresented the facts and that he was being pursued for a political offence. She ruled against extradition only on the grounds that the risk of him killing himself was substantial, given his mental health and the conditions in which he was likely to be held – in isolation in a “supermax” high-security prison.
      This decision is a relief for Mr Assange and his family. But it is no cause for celebration for the defendant and his supporters, or for those concerned about press freedom more broadly. The American Civil Liberties Union has described charging him over publication as “a direct assault on the first amendment”. The ruling offers no protection to any journalist who might find themselves in Mr Assange’s position. It is no victory for the right to share material of clear public interest.
      Mr Assange’s lawyers will on Wednesday apply for bail on his behalf. Legal experts suggest that his chances are poor: he served a 50-week sentence for skipping bail after police removed him from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had fled to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault investigation that was subsequently dropped. But his prospects of avoiding extradition now appear considerably brighter; he has a family to consider; and his mental health and the physical risks posed by Covid in Belmarsh prison, where he has been held since April 2019, make the case for bail more pressing.
      Legal proceedings are likely to drag on for years – unless the US chooses to scrap these charges rather than appeal. It should do so. There is a shameful contrast between this administration’s simultaneous pardoning of men for horrific offences and the pursuit of a man who exposed war crimes. When Joe Biden takes office on 20 January, he cannot undo the damage caused by undue and unjust lenience. But he can, and should, let Mr Assange walk free. More