Prosecute Julian Assange ("I love Wikileaks!")

[Fife]

EXCLUSIVE: Senator Rand Paul Thinks Julian Assange Should Be Granted Immunity for Testimony

Speaking to the Gateway Pundit, Senator Paul asserted that Assange likely has important information about the hack and that it’s unlikely he would agree to testify without immunity.

“I think that he should be given immunity from prosecution in exchange for coming to the United States and testifying,” Senator Paul told the Gateway Pundit. “I think he’s been someone who has released a lot of information, and you can debate whether or not any of that has caused harm, but I think really he has information that is probably pertinent to the hacking of the Democratic emails that would be nice to hear.”

“It’s probably unlikely to happen unless he is given some type of immunity from prosecution,” Senator Paul added.

[SuburbanFarmer]

They couldn’t kill him, and they can’t prosecute him without more coming out. Time for the “national security” blanket excuse.

He’ll get a closed-door kangaroo court hearing, then be Whitey Bulgered in custody. All swept under the rug, in our best interest of course.

[Montegriffo]

Equador should get their hands on some Novichok then everyone will blame the Russians.

[pineapplemike]

Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... ks-758883/
Forget Jim Acosta. If you’re worried about Trump’s assault on the press, news of a Wikileaks indictment is the real scare story
Matt Taibbi

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since the summer of 2012, is back in the news. Last week, word of a sealed federal indictment involving him leaked out.
...
Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack told Rolling Stone he had “not been informed that Mr. Assange has been charged, or the nature of any charges.”

Pollock and other sources could not be sure, but within the Wikileaks camp it’s believed that this charge, if it exists, is not connected to the last election.

“I would think it is not related to the 2016 election since that would seem to fall within the purview of the Office of Special Counsel,” Pollack said.
...
Although it’s technically true that an Assange indictment could be about anything, we do have some hints about its likely direction. Back in 2014, search warrants were served to Google in connection with Wikileaks that listed causes of criminal action then being considered. Google informed Wikileaks of the warrants.
...
The investigation probably goes as far back as 2010, in connection with the release of ex-army private Chelsea Manning’s “Collateral Murder” video. That footage showed American forces in Iraq firing on a Reuters journalist and laughing about civilian casualties.

While much of the progressive media world applauded this exposure of George W. Bush’s Iraq war, the government immediately began looking for ways to prosecute. The Sydney Herald reported that the FBI opened its investigation of Assange “after Private Manning’s arrest in May of 2010.”

Ironically, one of the first public figures to call for Assange to be punished was Donald Trump, who in 2010 suggested the “death penalty” on Fox Radio’s Kilmeade and Friends.
...
It's impossible to know exactly what recent news about an indictment means until we see it (the Reporters’ Committee for the Freedom of the Press has already filed a motion to unseal the charges). If there is a case, it could be anything in the federal criminal code, perhaps even unrelated to leaks. Who knows?

But the more likely eventuality is a prosecution that uses the unpopularity of Assange to shut one of the last loopholes in our expanding secrecy bureaucracy. Americans seem not to grasp what might be at stake. Wikileaks briefly opened a window into the uglier side of our society, and if publication of such leaks is criminalized, it probably won’t open again.

There’s already a lot we don’t know about our government’s unsavory clandestine activities on fronts like surveillance and assassination, and such a case would guarantee we’d know even less going forward. Long-term questions are hard to focus on in the age of Trump. But we may look back years from now and realize what a crucial moment this was.

[heydaralon]

I remember when I took Taibbi seriously as a journalist. It was some time before 2016... I guess he doesn't mention how Barrack could have pardoned Assange. Somehow this is Trump's assault on the press. Also not mentioned in the article is how Clinton when she was serving Obama asked in sincerity why they couldn't just drop a bomb on the embassy. lol

[pineapplemike]

Credit where credit's due, Obama's Justice Dept didn't ultimately pursue charges against him, so in a way yes, this is Trump's assault, or Pompeo's atleast

As the Washington Post put it in 2013 when it explained the Obama DOJ’s decision not to prosecute Assange:

Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

I take your point and I agree that Obama could have pardoned him, but so can Trump. Trump certainly has more reason too, and I don't recall Obama proclaiming his love for Wikileaks on multiple occasions.

[Speaker to Animals]

Because pursuing charges against a foreign national for publishing documents your own people leaked is asinine. The federal government has no jurisdiction there and no crime was committed by Assange in our jurisdiction. If Assange were operating servers inside the US they might have a case.

I think Greenwald was on to the truth of the matter when he suggested Assange should be given immunity in exchange for evidence and testimony regarding the DNC leaks. That might actually be the ultimate plan.

By the way, it's already a crime to publish classified documents. It's not some new sweeping draconian plan. The government just didn't often pursue charges against journalists for doing it in the past, instead punishing the leakers themselves.

[heydaralon]

Because pursuing charges against a foreign national for publishing documents your own people leaked is asinine. The federal government has no jurisdiction there and no crime was committed by Assange in our jurisdiction. If Assange were operating servers inside the US they might have a case.

I think Greenwald was on to the truth of the matter when he suggested Assange should be given immunity in exchange for evidence and testimony regarding the DNC leaks. That might actually be the ultimate plan.

By the way, it's already a crime to publish classified documents. It's not some new sweeping draconian plan. The government just didn't often pursue charges against journalists for doing it in the past, instead punishing the leakers themselves.

That's what weird to me. I would not be cool with troop movements or things that put US service men or operatives at risk being given to another party who makes it widely known. However, even if you want to make the case that publishing any kind of classified info is treason, once the horse is out of the barn, the info is out there and technically no classified, and a third party publishing it seems like a gray area.

Do you think Manning committed treason? From my understanding he just did a doc dump without even reading or understanding what he leaked, which seems incredibly dumb. If anything, I kind of lean towards him being still imprisoned, while Snowden and Assange being left alone. Idk, how I feel about this whole thing. The govt really handled it poorly though, and they lied through their teeth about the prism program and a host of other things.

[Speaker to Animals]

Because pursuing charges against a foreign national for publishing documents your own people leaked is asinine. The federal government has no jurisdiction there and no crime was committed by Assange in our jurisdiction. If Assange were operating servers inside the US they might have a case.

I think Greenwald was on to the truth of the matter when he suggested Assange should be given immunity in exchange for evidence and testimony regarding the DNC leaks. That might actually be the ultimate plan.

By the way, it's already a crime to publish classified documents. It's not some new sweeping draconian plan. The government just didn't often pursue charges against journalists for doing it in the past, instead punishing the leakers themselves.

That's what weird to me. I would not be cool with troop movements or things that put US service men or operatives at risk being given to another party who makes it widely known. However, even if you want to make the case that publishing any kind of classified info is treason, once the horse is out of the barn, the info is out there and technically no classified, and a third party publishing it seems like a gray area.

Do you think Manning committed treason? From my understanding he just did a doc dump without even reading or understanding what he leaked, which seems incredibly dumb. If anything, I kind of lean towards him being still imprisoned, while Snowden and Assange being left alone. Idk, how I feel about this whole thing. The govt really handled it poorly though, and they lied through their teeth about the prism program and a host of other things.

It's not necessarily treason. It's just illegal to disseminate classified documents to people who are not authorized to see them. This is why Patreus went down, for instance. The government just usually goes after the original leaker and leave the journalists alone. The understanding that seemed to have been in place is that they deep state would request the news organization to not publish particularly dangerous information (like troop deployments, etc).

I think the real story here is that the MSM is just the propaganda arm of the deep state, and they are going after Assange because he's not in the club. It's part of the broader effort to paint citizen journalists as agitators and alternative media as fake news -- when the real agitators and fake news are all corporate MSM and blogs.

Manning did not commit treason, but he violated several laws. He deserves to be in military detention barracks for decades for what he did.

[Ph64]

Because pursuing charges against a foreign national for publishing documents your own people leaked is asinine. The federal government has no jurisdiction there and no crime was committed by Assange in our jurisdiction. If Assange were operating servers inside the US they might have a case.

I think Greenwald was on to the truth of the matter when he suggested Assange should be given immunity in exchange for evidence and testimony regarding the DNC leaks. That might actually be the ultimate plan.

By the way, it's already a crime to publish classified documents. It's not some new sweeping draconian plan. The government just didn't often pursue charges against journalists for doing it in the past, instead punishing the leakers themselves.

Well, it's a gray area in the courts on freedom of the press, but in general 18USC798 should apply... To U.S. residents, covered under the US code.

But that begs the question of why Assange, not a U.S. citizen or resident, should be covered by U.S. law... And if the UK arrests him for whatever reason is he then extraditable to the US under a law that doesn't apply to him as a non-citizen/resident.

He didn't steal/remove the documents himself, nor pay/arrange for their theft (conspiracy), so if he wasn't covered under 18USC798 he technically did no wrong.

If they manage to successfully prosecute him for this it sets a really really horrifying precedent - get some foreign country to arrest someone for jaywalking or something, and drag them back to your country to then charge them for a law that they weren't under the jurisdiction of at the time, but now you claim they are because you got them extradited to your soil.