New York Times: meets w White House to get okay over what to publish.
Julian Assange: publishes news of those meetings.
Which is the reporter; which the stenographer?
Which has a history of publishing untruths, and which has yet to publish anything proven untrue.
I've noticed over the years when I receive those 'issue survey' fund-raising letters from the Democratic Party, that no matter many choices of issues there are, civil liberties is never on the list. I still don't see why people on the left tolerate the growing contempt - in Washington, on campus, in the very atmosphere of the liberal/left debate, for the values that most restrain corruption and abuse of power, the values that help keep people free, that help to protect people who are in a bad place in life - poor, maligned, in trouble -, the values that guard against mistreatment of people. Civil liberties are essential to create the power to defend the understanding that everyone has inherent human rights, that we are all people, that we are all human beings. How on earth did 'classical liberalism' become a conservative talking point? How could the Civil Rights Era have ended Jim Crow without free speech? The issues are bigger than Assange. The left used to cast a critical eye on the intelligence community, given it's vast potential for abuse of power, it's inherent infringement on civil liberties, it's institutional hostility to restraint on power, and it's history of horror. All they have to do is squabble with Trump, and they can be trusted to do whatever they want? Didn't Abu Ghraib lift the corner of the carpet? We need to rebuild the relevance and power of the Bill of Rights for everyone, to protect everyone, with no exceptions.
“WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers.“ Wouldn’t “allegedly stolen” be more journalistically appropriate, given that such allegations have never been established in a court of law (& almost certainly never will be)? Why this change in form, which treats Mueller’s indictments as congenial fact?
Also, if he knew, I doubt Assange cared about the affiliation of Wikileaks’ sources — an indifference shared by the progressive left, so long as the leaks were damaging/embarrassing to interests to which they were hostile. But all that changed when their partisan oxen began getting gored.
1
I've read some attempts to explain why Trump voters continue to support him despite how awful he's turned out to be as a person and how much of a threat he's become to their own interests. One the most popular is that they're unable to admit to themselves that they've been conned, so they stick with him and even double down in their unwillingness to face the embarrassing truth.
I see a parallel conflictedness here. Some who enthusiastically supported Assange and Wikileaks' leaking of confidential US government information need to believe that Assange et al must have become corrupted somehow to be able to help Moscow undermine their candidate, Hillary Clinton, and enable the election of Donald Trump.
Like Trump supporters, they can't bring themselves to contemplate the chilling possibility that they've been conned all along through skillful manipulation of their predispositions by their country's enemies.
3
Free Assange. Without him or Snowden we sheep would not know that the Governments of liberal Western countries are the wolves preying on our gullibility to give the people's wealth to the military industrial complex.
All Western countries are guilty of it. Some like Sweden play a double game, in the service of the USA. At least the position of the UK is the same as the USA and all know it.
7
This is a great loss of press freedom. Anyone that sees it differently has a political agenda.
7
He has taken transparency too far at the expense of our national security. He must now leave the embassy in London and pay for his high crimes. I have no respect for this guy's style, nor do i think he is a hero or innovator. He has done far more harm than good by releasing stolen information and risking US interests and friends. He also picks and chooses which information to release that benefits him and his foreign agent friends. This dude is a loser and treats his cat poorly.
2
@Chris Macdonald
Assange doesn't owe the United States government protection of its "national security."
He is free to publish or withhold any information he chooses. That's how freedom of the press works. As well as freedom of speech.
The government cannot dictate what you can publish or what you can say.
4
It's sad to see so many NYT readers be so quick to take Trump's side and throw away our right to know what the government and big corporations are actually doing to us just to retaliate against Assange because Clinton lost. (Would these commentators be so outraged with Assange if Clinton had won?)
Both Putin and Asssange had a bone to pick with Clinton for what she had done to them and I'll bet that was the primary motive. At the time, no one expected Trump to win and what was revealed was the extent that the Democratic Party inner circle went to stop Sanders. The Bernie people certainly thought that the emails were newsworthy.
Trump wants to , piece by piece, kill off our democratic political institutions , norms and expectations. Everywhere you look, Trump is forcing the organs of government-the presidency, government agencies, the judiciary, the army, the Republican Party and the press to bend to Trump and Bannon's project to remake America as an authoritarian polity.
Remember what Wikileaks revealed about the US war in Afghanistan? We thought that was necessary and good. The Pentagon Papers were attacked by the government for aiding the enemy. But they ended up contributing to the end of the Vietnam war. Have we already forgotten about Edward Snowden? Aren't we better off knowing what our government is doing to us?
Supporting the prosecution of Assange is a monumental trap. Like the Patriot Act, we will lose basic democratic rights and they will not come back.
7
Although the charges raise potential First Amendment concerns, we don't know the actual charges that were filed. If the charges are that Assange and his co-conspirators violated federal law by breaking into Hillary Clinton's campaign's computer networks, no constitutional issue is raised. There is no First Amendment right or immunity for any reporter to burglarize private property or unlawfully access a computer network to obtain information.
@Christopher Rillo
Since you don't know what the charges are there is little point in referring to the obvious illegality of burglary.
1
Assange hasn't committed any crimes, and he's not an American (he's Australian) citizen, so he can't even be charged with being a traitor. There was a sexual accusation against him, but that had no basis and was dismissed. The Americans don't have any legitimate reason to prosecute him, so they're squandering a large amount of taxpayer money in attempts to frame him because his news organization publicized a number of brazenly illegal acts committed by the U.S. government.
9
Assange is a hero of the resistance.
11
Transparency is fundamental to Democracy.
Our governments are not transparent, unfortunately.
Assange's beginnings were, imperfect and all, precisely a quest to provide the information obscured by our governments.
I see Assange's actions rational and reasonable and civic.
We, The People, need to consider the government as a democratic role-model, fair and equitable; to harass Assange's intermittent intelligence is neither. BTW, can somebody provide proof, of a sacrifice caused only by Assange's leaks?
And to end, the craftiness in deception of the likes of Roger Stone, certainly to consider, could very well have relevance as the reason for WikiLeaks to have, alas, leaked.
Worst comes to worst, someone could extend Assange a journalist credential and let him solarize, once and for all? The world suspense is being perhaps more damaging than the disclosures.
6
What a strange way to find out.
When are other indictments coming? Is this how Mueller leaks information?!
Given everything we know about the Khashoggi killing and the surveillance/audio footage captured by the Turkish secret service, who’s to say the Ecuadorians have not been doing the same during Assange’s prolonged stay?
2
I used to respect Assange and WikiLeaks, but he has proven again and again that he is nothing but a coward. All he thinks about is himself and how to push what he believes. He has cost the Ecuadorian state money they can I’ll afford and which should have been better used somewhere else.
It is time for him to face the consequences of his actions. He is a “victim” of his own making and he wants to become a “martyr” for his own cause. Whether it is the US, Swedish or British law enforcement agencies prosecuting him is irrelevant. It is time for him to face the music and start answering questions.
24
@Eva
Yeah, right. Coward? You go and spend a lifetime in US prison, if you are so brave. If anything, that proves that only proves that Assange was right all along when he claimed that all that obscenely vindictive manhunt was about getting him extradited, convicted and jailed in order to make an example out of it for everyone who might think of bringing US crimes to light in the future. He does not want to become a martyr - that would be easy, just surrender to US authorities and spend the rest of your life in jail or on death row. He fights for truth, transparency and justice. The fact that some people fail to see it and so easily fall prey to elitist propaganda tropes only proves how important is what Assange is doing.
11
@Eva You are WOEFULLY ill informed. First, he is not facing punishment for his publication, he is facing a false rape charge to throw him in a hole and silence him. Ecuador OFFERED him asylum. He gave up his freedom, everything he has in reality, to keep trying to bring the truth to the people. You should look more in to the situation.
6
I'm not totally against what Assange has done - or more correctly, his motives for doing it, but for those on here claiming he deserves a Nobel prize, sainthood or whatever, consider another aspect of the man.
Assange skipped UK bail whilst Sweden was seeking his extradition. Bail was set at about $200,000 - about average here for this sort of case - and was guaranteed by five Assange friends of quite modest means. They have really struggled to meet the forfeit - a court ordered them to pay the full amount almost immediately.
Neither Assange nor Wikileaks have paid back these people a dime, so far.
5
@nolongeradoc
You miss the larger picture here.
The attempt to arrest Assange was in order to put him in a position to be extradited to the United States.
Knowing how the US government treats people who expose its wrongdoing, it would have been little short of suicide for Assange to have surrendered.
Have you heard any complaints from the friends who put up the bail?
2
The U.S. has always affirmed its highest level of ethics in national or international affairs. The publication through Wikileaks of thousands troubled even mirk official documents threw a very different light about government and corporations behaviour. The truly big question is how otherwise can the citizens exert the right to information and Congress to effectively control what's going on in the country.
3
It really is a simple concept. Don't do stuff you wouldn't want others to find out about. Unfortunately the US (as well as most governments) do lots of things that they don't want their citizens to know.
The problem is those in power adopt a "need to know" mentality and eventually blur the line between what they think their constituents want to know and need to know. This is where some of the conflict and role of the press arises.
Classified information is an interesting concern when some items that remain classified and the reason they are cited as classified don't match. There is much that we have classified as military secrets which have no military value (e.g. because the other side already has the classified information like was the case with the Stealth Fighter and Stealth Bomber, when you are reading Russian translations of the classified material, why is it still a breach of classified secrets if you mention or have pictures of the aircraft?)
The findings of the JFK assassination have still been redacted as have parts of the Watergate scandal, the false flag events that led the US into the Korean, Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, and both Iraq wars.
Investigative journalism must be upheld, even those that point out the wrongdoing of the US. I just wish the investigative journalist did a bit more following the money to understand the reason and motivation behind some of the worst decisions being made in the name of "national interest"
5
Oh, for crying out loud. Anybody interested has known about the Gulf of Tonkin “incident,” being completely phony for what, twenty years? Neither is it needful to know the name of the third bosun’s mate from the left to track our government’s sometime total bogosity.
It’s time we stopped palming off our own indifference and inattention on everybody else.
1
"Pompeo...accused Mr. Assange of making “common cause with dictators.”
Oh that is rich, richly reeking of hypocrisy. Does he pay any attention to what he and his boss do? Or are presidentially-approved dictators OK? Guess it is.
Assange is a journalist, period. Let's try to quit offering cover to Trump by suggesting it's possible to see him as something else. Do that and it will draw a bullseye on the head of every investigative journalist out -- just when they are needed more than ever.
6
Something smells fishy here.
Copy pasted charges against a super high profile person into an unrelated case of a completely obscure person.
Okay, clerical errors happen, but... maybe somebody was trying to give a heads up... we'll see... or not.
Sadly, media outlets jump all over the opportunity to make a global outing of what they know shouldn’t be made public.
Plug from a nobody:
Transparency being the issue here Assange is a Real Hero just like Snowden and Manning. Why we allow the criminal empire to persecute those who demonstrate more transparency than our criminal government ever will is beyond me. Apparently it is beyond everyone else too since we do, in fact, allow the persecution and worse. We have institutionalized treason here at home in the form of the Drug War. Don't think so? Read Article III Section III of the Constitution and apply it to what we do with S.W.A.T. team raids. So it shouldn't be any wonder to me but it is...
10
He's put himself in a prison of choice. He can't go out, can't work, can't ply his trade. He could have come out, done his time and be a free man by now.
3
@Tom
That ignores the real danger Assange was in.
Had he surrendered, he would have been extradited to the United States and tried and imprisoned for "crimes against the US."
He would be serving a very lengthy term, like that imposed on Chelsea Manning.
2
Fine by me. I hope the hypocritical Assange spends the rest of his life either in an American prison or eating that Ecuadorean specialty, planked guinea pig, in his lonely room by himself.
What may have started as an objective exercise in publishing truthful information was quickly taken over by his ego and attempts to influence our elections.
He rolled the dice and lost. Cry me a river. Call Pam Anderson collect. What, she's not taking your calls anymore either? See above.
7
@Lou Good
All that unwarranted assumption without even knowing what the charges against him are.
The worst part is that you assume that the US government is in the right against the person who exposed much its wrongdoings.
2
" ... Russia’s 2016 election interference. WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers."
In other words, these were illegally exposed on the HRC/DNC private server and ripe for the stealing. Like candy from a baby.
3
@JBC
I believe you are confusing two entirely different sets of emails. The State Department emails on Clinton's private server were never stolen. The DNC is not the State Department and there is no reason they would be required to use secured government servers. These emails were not "illegally exposed."
3
While you’re right that one is not the other, it is in point of fact very illegal to break into somebody’s computer system and swipe their data.
@Robert I totally agree. I was clarifying the difference for JBC who seemed to be implying that the DNC was somehow "illegally exposing" their own emails by using the "wrong" server.
Seems the morning and afternoon crews missed it. Once again for that old favorite CNN First Amendment free speech:
Let's hope Obama and members of his criminal regime have been "secretly charged" also: to include Comey, Lynch, Rice, and Brennan. Strzok and Page should already be in Leavenworth along with McCabe for obstruction. Still time, though.
6
When Donald Trump recently called for revote of one of the Democratic victories, he projected what he know should happen to him.
He’s the puppet and Putin’s folly of an election should be declared invalid and a revote scheduled.
He’s not inscrutable. He compulsively projects his sins onto others.
5
So federal prosecutors don’t double check their filings beyond the cover page before they click “send”... ?
2
Assange is a very smart guy but managed to make enemies from all angles. He now is living under the thumbs of Ecuador who at any time can kick him out of their London Embassy, get him arrested by the Brits who will then ship him to Sweden who in turn will pass him on to the US. All he has left is a cat - quite tragic actually for a guy with real brains.
5
There is nothing in the Constitution or Bill of Rights (thank goodness) saying that they only apply to "nice guys". Whether or not Assange is nice or obnoxious or not has no bearing whatsoever on the legality of what he has done, the illegality he has helped expose (TO the American people), and the illegality and hypocrisy of the US government's persecution (NOT a mispelling) of him.
4
Assange is an egomaniac and criminal like tump.
Neither are ethical or have moral principles that guide them. They don't care at all about the common good.
Both should be in jail.
9
Relax, 1st-amendment enthusiasts: and indictment is a charge, not a conviction. He will get his day in court in our system.
1
@X
Assange is an Australian citizen.
He doesn't have any 1st Amendment rights.
@nolongeradoc
Yes, he does.
Everyone on US soil is protected by the US Constitution.
2
@X
Don't count on it.
The US government has infinite resources and an easily biased jury to convict him of anything they please.
2
Personally I find it dubious that the US should be able to extradite a foreign citizen based on a law specific to our country by which only our citizens are under its jurisdiction. He did not commit a crime on US soil. And its questionable if he committed a crime at all. The US should be able to arrest him if he comes to the USA but no other country, even our allies should enforce this claim. Will the US be turning over our own citizens caught fomenting unrest in foreign countries via the internet? It sure is against the law in a lot of countries.
4
@Edward
Should he leave the embassy, he will be arrested by London's Metropolitan Police and held in custody pending his court appearance on a charge of bail violation. Obviously, he won't get bail. During that time, the US authorities will have to present an extradition case case to a senior British court.
Under those circumstances, I think it's highly likely that Assange will be extradited to the US - but that it will be a somewhat lengthy process.
4
Judging by the reactions here, it's rather clear that any information that puts America in the negative light is viewed as criminal activity. Nationalism seems to be growing in America, on the left as well as on the right. Patriotism, on the other hand, is long dead.
"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war." -- Sydney J. Harris
8
@Adam
Good comment. The Left embrace their own brand of Nationalism when they see it as Anti Trump.
2
@Adam
I see no evidence of any so-called "left-wing nationalism."
1
I have heard of courts sealing many, many things...
But to seal a criminal charging document? To seal the very thing that says "We, the people, believe that you are guilty of this crime." To keep that secret?
Whoa.
That's a line that I did not think could be crossed. That is disturbing.
5
I did some quick research, and it turns out in fact that the government can seal an indictment for law enforcement purposes. Going all the way back into the early 1900's, at least.
I'm going to agree to disagree with the Supreme Court on this one. I still find it disturbing, even if I lose the disagreement.
5
@htg
It's very unlikely that the UK courts will consider a US extradition request unless the indictment is unsealed.
How could the request be considered if the charges are unknown?
2
By the way, one of the sets of questions you ask (or ought to) when you’re trying to evaluate whether or not the kind of act of civil disobedience we’re talking about is this: is stealing and publishing info the only way this gets out? Is this theft needed to inform citizens of something they never knew before?
Show of hands: who thought the invasion of Iraq was on the up-and-up? Who’ll willing to admit that they were either so thick or so disinterested or so sunk in right-wing ideology that they didn’t know darn well the Bush government’s excuses were garbage? You didn’t know we’d been kidnapping and torturing people by then?
Or as for the politics: you didn’t know that political groups like the DNC make choices, and then go work to get them to happen? You didn’t know that people like Clinton give speeches to fat cats for money, sometimes using the loot to good purpose and sometimes just pocketing it?
Come on, already.
And here’s another question you ask: what’s the point of civil disobedience? Is it to swipe stuff, fire it out there and run away? Or is it to take a moral stand that rests on a belief that your “crime,” is still against the law, but expressive of a no-kidding higher purpose? A purpose you advance not just by the theft, but by standing up as a witness to your beliefs by going to jail and fighting in court?
Come ON, already. Ellsberg and the Catonsville people, King and all the others with their eyes on the prize, them I respect. These guys?
No.
2
He knowingly received stolen property and distributed it for the sole purpose of undermining democracy. It would be nice to see this entitled little prince prosecuted and convicted.
5
@Gustav Aschenbach
He didn't receive stolen property. He received the information that was in it.
It's not illegal to publish information one receives, even if it were stolen by a third party.
There's no evidence that Assange participated in its theft.
2
The fact most of the Wikileaks documents benefits Russia in detriment of the West is only a symptom the West is in the wrong side of History, not that Assange is some kind of a Russian double agent.
The documents are legit. Assange is innocent and is well within the First Amendment protection.
3
I know this is a brain twister for many people after having read some of the comments in this thread, but try, please, to extrapolate what Assange does and what Daniel Ellsberg and the Washington Post and New York times did. Ellsberg was a military analyst who worked for the Rand Corporation. He stole top secret Pentagon files and gave them to both the Washington Post and the New York Times who published them. Today we celebrate what he did and the brave journalists and editors of both papers who published those top secret military files over the vehement objections of the government. Assange publishes information given to him that makes the powerful uncomfortable. In other words, he does what a journalist or any news organization interested in a free press is suppose to do. Convict Assange for revealing truths and you might as well just shut down a free press and free speech protections in this country.
9
Ellsberg released materials that he got from the military of which we were completely unaware, released them via a vetting agency, and then stayed and fought it out, didn’t get paid, and had the good of this country in mind.
Assange et al did little or none of that, then ran away...including to Russia.
Lecture some more.
3
Ellsberg was a dedicated American who sincerely wanted to help his country. Assange is a foreign national who hates this country and admits that he wants us brought down and destroyed. He is a tool of Putin, who also hates this country and wants us brought down and destroyed. Shame on anyone who dares to compare Daniel Ellsberg with that.
@Robert
You don't like the fact that Assange released information that you think may have hurt you, in a way that you disapprove.
Tough.
It's still journalism. He had no obligation to release only information favorable to you.
In fact, Assange has risked as much as, if not more than, Ellsberg in order to bring out the truth, suffering what amounts to years of house arrest as a consequence.
2
Isn't it a violation of the Constitution to SECRETLY charge a person with a crime?
2
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Are you referring to the 6th Amendment? All it requires is a public trial. It says nothing about how charges are brought. Grand jury proceedings are routinely secret.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Sealed indictments are issued all the time, e.g. in circumstances in which a public indictment would give advance warning to the indictee and allow him/her to flee to another country.
That's what's going on here. There's nothing illegal nor nefarious about it.
2
I’ll bet you know perfectly well that sealed indictments get done all the time in the course of investigations, particularly when they have to do with national security and organized crime.
Funny you should ask, though, given that what IS illegal is stuff like, oh, I dunno, kidnapping terrorist subjects, holding them without representation or bail or so much as a court hearing, torturing them, stuff like that. Also illegal to use public office to advertise your crummy clothes and cheap perfume, to campaign for particular candidates, to solicit massive loans, stuff like that. Something to do with the wacky emoluments clause of this wimpy liberal thingy called the Constitution, I believe.
Oh, and this just in. DEFINITELY illegal to use the regular military to carry out police functions in this country, particularly if you’re gonna arm them. Posse Comitatus Act, y’all, passed to get Union troops off the back of the Klan and big Southern landowners, if memory serves.
6
Julian Assange will never spend a day in a US jail.
Assange will be, in a way or another, helped by Russia. Putin knows very well that protecting foreign turncoats would motivate others like Assange to be part of Russian future subversive plans.
6
There are a lot of comments on freedom of speech or press associated with the case. One aspect that is missing is accountability. Who gives Assange such power in public opinion when he is not accountable to anyone? We know the players in the traditional media, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, etc. and they and their organization will take the fall if they did something malicious. Not so with Assange and all these independent websites.
5
@JC
If you are suggesting, that only main stream media outlets deserve the right to free speech, you are entering dangerous territory, because none of these outlets are non-partisan; they're driven by corporate interests, political affiliations and all (without exception) have a built-in bias. Wikileaks and other sites make no money from reporting anything and as the public, we have the absolute and inalienable right to know what is being done to us without our consent.
8
@JC
Anyone can be prosecuted for crimes. That is the limit of accountability.
You cannot prosecute the press for reporting the news, even if that news comes from a source that was stolen by a third party.
There is no evidence that Assange and Wikileaks have committed a crime.
2
It is shocking to learn how many NYT readers seem to completely misunderstand the 1st amendment issues raised here and seem, in attacking Assange, so willing to elevate partisan issues above fundamental principles.
8
Here’s a fundamental principle for ya: an honorable whistleblower like Daniel Ellsberg leaks the Pentagon Papers, then stays in this country to stand up for his principles and to accept the consequences of his actions. She or he also doesn’t get nearly as sanctimonious as Assange does.
5
@Bill Wolfe,
So we'll break into your private information (remember the DNC is not part of the US Government) and release your Social Security Number or your ATM pincode to the world.
Ain't freedom of speech grand?
7
@Bill Wolfe
They have TDS.
1
The "Times" reports and questions, "Their dilemma came down to a question they found no clear answer to: Is there any legal difference between what WikiLeaks was doing, at least in that era, from what traditional news media organizations, like The New York Times, do in soliciting and publishing information they obtain that the government wants to keep secret?"
And the "Times" further reports, "WikiLeaks has been attacked for its publication of the hacked Democratic emails. In April 2017, the C.I.A. director at the time, Mike Pompeo, called it a “hostile intelligence service” that was aided by Russia and accused Mr. Assange of making “common cause with dictators.” --- which term would certainly include Emperors.
Clearly the core of the "dilemma" question --- and obviously, the answer to this question in the second section of the "Times" reporting is that under faux-Emperor Trump, proconsul, Mike Pompeo, has been empower, by the Emperor himself, to determine the quasi "legal difference between" when "publishing information" that exposes the Empire's actions are legal and when they are detrimental to this otherwise Disguised Global Capitalist Empire, which is only nominally HQed in, and merely 'posing' as our formerly promising and sometimes progressing country (PKA) America, and can be seen by 'we the American people' (AKA) citizen/'subjects'.
As "The Post" notes in its mast-head slogan, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" --- to which the "Times" might add --- "under Empire".
7
@Alan MacDonald
The seminal question, which consumes my thinking, now that the power and truth about; Facebook, Google/DeepMind, Amazon, Exxon, IBM, the MIC, and the global Banks are involved, is whether the DGCEmpire is moving toward being a government-centric Empire, a corporate-centric Empire, or fully integrated.
2
Looks like the truth is finally out that the US will create a law that Assange has broken. They've made Assange a prisoner in England with the Swedish accusations that maybe never happened. They want to silence Assange or they want to silence the truth the only thing Assange most likely ever did.
5
@Larry
And what makes you so sure that the "Swedish accusations" never happened? If the accusations are true, then your whole argument in defense of Assange falls apart.
And if they're not true, why has he run away from facing a fair trial? Come to think of it, Trump follows the same (guilty) playbook.
4
@Paul-A:You are right and same questions I've also asked. The only thing I've read is he's afraid to get extradited. Most likely if he got extradited he would be imprisoned for life. Apparently he has spilled lot of secrets from military, cyber tools, and the DNC.
1
@Larry
Assange has no obligation to protect US secrets.
As a journalist, he has a right to print any information that comes into his possession.
Just as does the New York Times, which originally published the illegally obtained Pentagon Papers.
The indictments are an obvious attempt by the US government to silence him and Wikileaks for exposing its wrongdoing.
2
If Assange was recently working with the Russians to undermine the Democratic Party and ensure Trump's election, there's every chance he was also working with the Russians to undermine US intelligence-gathering back in the Bush era.
The Russians must have laughed over the massive "useful idiot" wave that reacted like a dog blindly chasing a thrown stick in supporting Wikileaks and Assange, while loudly denouncing their own government and making its intelligence-gathering much more difficult. Ouch.
3
One look at the comments section here shows that this story has driven the entire country apart into two corners, like opponents in a boxing ring, to the point where the "facts" themselves are mutually exclusive/contradictory and can no longer be agreed upon, even by the two sides who are supposedly trying to debate about them.
The remarkable plethora of new voices in alt right media, be they Infowars, Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, Daily Caller, True Pundit, talk radio or clever Fox "Opinion" newscasters, have truly changed the form of the world that we live in. Ideas that were once formerly the purview of the John Bircher/amateur JFK conspiracy buff type fringe, are now the beating heart and living soul of the Republican party. Its central plank and moral core, is now a vast conspiracy theory of labyrinthian Dan Brown-esque epic proportions. And it's working to someone's benefit.
This is the new normal now. The way I see it, Mueller's job is to figure out what the heck really happened, and tell us, to everyone's satisfaction, and I don't envy him one bit -- it's basically an impossible "ask" at this point.
2
He's a Russian asset. Nail him to the wall.
8
Assange and Ecuador - perfect together. His actions are treasonous and not deserving of any sympathy. He is about as much a journalist as freelance bloggers of the right and left. It’s unfortunate that Sweden had dropped the rape charges. His actions make it appear like he feels that he can operate with impunity like some people occupying the White House. They should be indicted.
2
@Adk
Assange is Australian, not a US citizen, therefore his actions are not treasonous. At least not to the US. He may have broken other US laws, but treason is not one of those.
8
@Scott Werden
You are correct according to US code. My point I was trying,to make was that citizens living in western democracies have benefitted from US guarantees of protection for their free speech for more than half a century. As such, allegiance to our considerable sacrifice is “owed.” Without it, dissenters like Assange would be living in totalitarian states. Aiding and abetting dictatorships under the guise of exposing the shortcomings of our institutions doesn’t improve them. It helps our enemies further damage them and ultimately will undermine our democracy. Shockingly, this has already been occuring by the leadership of one of our own political parties.
@Adk
You just made an argument against free speech.
The right of dissent is inherent in the guarantee of free speech, even if such speech is critical of the government that insures it.
No one "owes allegiance" to anyone else's alleged "sacrifice." Nor is it the US's role to protect free speech among the Western democracies. Each has its own constitution and laws, none of which is subject to those of the US.
2
Missing from most people's comments is a sense of life's ambiguities.
At first, Assange revealed to the public some problems that people needed to know about. But as time went on, he indulged himself in a natural arrogance and personal hatreds and vendettas.
How far gone in hubris do you have to be to be willing to collaborate with Putin to elect Trump over Hillary Clinton?
Despite multiple investigations and much effort, a quarter century of Republican opposition work has not found Hillary to be a criminal.
They have, however, succeeded in getting even the so-called "liberal" media to join in condemnations of Hillary and the likes of Nancy Pelosi as villains who are shrill and unpopular and indulge in undemocratic practices.
If you make the effort, you will find, for example, that Hillary was a popular and effective Senator and Secretary of State, and did her damnedest to get us universal health care in the early 1990s, which got her targeted by said opposition work. And that Nancy Pelosi is immensely popular in her district and an effective legislator.
Neither Trumppublicans and their enablers, dupes, and the wealthy that have bought and paid for them, nor the far left absolutists who think all that is necessary is to sloganeer and claim absolute right, are immune from this hubris.
It is ironical that Assange has married Putin and the right because he served their ends.
Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?
No. Assange wants to be the boss. He's lost it.
10
@Susan Anderson: It's funny how we keep telling ourselves what we want to hear even as reality suggests otherwise.
If Assange worked with the Russians to undermine the Democratic Party and ensure Trump's election, there's every chance he also worked with the Russians to undermine US intelligence-gathering back in the Bush era. Given Assange's pathological hatred of the US and his history of connections with Moscow -- not least in the Snowden businees -- it would be no surprise.
As painful as it is to acknowledge, both operations were aimed at the same result -- the weakening of the U.S. -- and have proved enormously successful.
@Susan Anderson
There is no evidence that Assange actively engaged in criminal activity against the US in order to aid Russia.
He is not a citizen of the United States and is not subject to its laws.
2
@Nick Wright
It's not necessary to be pathological to hate the actions of the US government.
Many of us perfectly sane people hate many of those actions.
2
Go get 'em Mr.Mueller. This country needs some healing, and soon. I never thought a man as evil as Trump could be president of the United States.
15
Trump has stated his love for WikiLeaks and could mean a pardon for Assange when convicted by the US. govt. By dangling a pardon as he did with Manaford Trump may cover himself for linkage to Stone and emails stolen by Russian operatives to favor Trump. Trump only cares about himself and will do anything to make sure he survives but as clever as he is the forces of reality are over overwhelming vs him. The reality show TV presidency will become more captivating then ever and in government bad press is not good news unlike the entertainment biz.
2
@REBCO,
Mueller will make sure president bone-spurs is 100% politically castrated before he descends on the little fish like Julie.
3
According to the article: "“The court filing was made in error,” said Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia.”
This error may make the Government's case against Assange more difficult to prosecute. His defense may use it as evidence that the Government was on a vendetta, similar to Assange's claims about the Swedes. If the Government is shown to be harassing him, it may make him impervious to any prosecution, legitimate or otherwise.
I am reminded of Ian Fleming's fictional character James Bond, who was given a 'license to kill'. This may be what a real 'license to kill' looks like.
2
Something you left out of this article that's extremely important: When Assange fled to the Ecuador embassy, he offered to face trial in Sweden for his relationship with Ms Kokayi, on the condition that he would not be turned over to the US. The Swedish authorities refused this offer, which is why he remains a fugitive.
The US government's efforts to arrest and charge Assange with something are completely illegal, for two reasons: 1. He's never been in US jurisdiction, so the US has no right to try him for any of his actions. 2. His actions were deemed legal decades ago by the Supreme Court in a case involving the NYTimes, which they should know full well about.
So what is this all about? The Pentagon didn't like the contents of what Assange published during the Iraq War (particularly a video of a US helicopter gunning down a Reuters journalist), and the Democrats didn't like the contents of what Assange published during the 2016 campaign. But that's exactly what the First Amendment is supposed to protect: The US government punishing people for the contents of their speech because it embarrassed them.
12
@Dave
One, you're not a lawyer, that much is clear.
Assange STOLE information, and then sold it to make money.
He *is* liable under the US Long Arm Statue regardless if he has or has not set foot in the US.
4
@Paul P.
With regards to the "Assange STOLE information" argument, there's zero evidence Assange did the stealing himself. There's also no evidence currently public that solicited or paid anybody to do the stealing on his behalf.
With regards to your "long-arm" argument, Intl Shoe v Washington (1945) makes it clear that a defendant requires some sort of contact with the jurisdiction in order for the case to be brought. Assange has never been in the US, and the stuff he's on trial for do not (again as far as we know) involve US citizens, ergo he cannot be tried in US court. He might be able to be tried by the UK, by Russia, or by Ecuador for his actions, but not the US.
5
@Paul P.
I'm sure you're not a lawyer, either.
Long arm statutes anywhere are always constrained by international law.
Secondly, the Federal process you refer to relates to CIVIL not criminal cases. US Long arm statutes don't apply here.
What has Assange stolen? He may have handled stolen property but it was Manning (and others) who stole.
4
There are a lot of posts here suggesting that a secret indictment somehow violates a persons right to know the charges against them. For the record, the right to know the charges against you does not begin until you are arrested and detained. That there are so many posts making this mistake, leads one to wonder if the Russian trolls are not out in force.
16
@W.A. Spitzer
But the government apparently filed the charges without notifying the person. That is different from investigating with the intent to charge a person and charging them at the time he is arrested.
3
@W.A. Spitzer
If the US wants Assange extradited from the UK, then the charges will have to declared. That's how British courts work.
1
@W.A. Spitzer
Sure, you have the right to know the charges, after you've been arrested and detained.
But Mr. Assange has not been arrested. He hasn't been detained. As far as I can tell, the U.S. doesn't even have a warrant out for his arrest.
And yet, here we are with a federal court apparently allowing the government to open a case, charge the defendant, then immediately sealing the case from public view?
That is insane.
2
"Anti-secrecy" or calculated dissemination of Russian disinformation in order to influence American elections?
Et tu NYT?
2
Which Wikileaks disclosure was untrue? That Ms. Clinton was paid $625,000 to speak to Goldman Sachs? or that the CIA used torture and developed tools for hacking into all kinds of computers and phones? or ??? what?
5
Mistake?
Inadvertent?
You can't be serious. This information was purposely leaked for both Julian Assange and Vladimir Putin.
Assange, so that now he has to continuously look over his shoulder until we ultimately drag his arse to court.
Putin, so that he knows Assange is now a target of Mueller's investigation and his entire disinformation program is about to become common knowledge.
This entire thing was designed to do precisely what it is doing.
Way to America!!!
6
Was this a case of sabotage or incompetence in the U.S. Injustice Department?
Or was this an act of Russian intelligence aka GRU aka FSB aka SVR?
3
Wikileaks documents largely benefited Russia because the West is in the wrong side of History, not because Assange is a double agent.
Assange is innocent.
5
I do not care WHO funnels the truth to Wikileaks, as long as it is the truth. Every serious non biased news organization in the world should stand by Assange!
11
@alexgri You can't be serious. The DNC is a private organization and they have a right to privacy. The documents were stolen. The world does not have a right to know your credit card, Social Security, and bank routing numbers, just because they are true.
9
@alexgri
Assange is a Thief, and no amount of ideology will change the illegal nature of his acts.
Period.
2
You can stand by him in prison, if you like.
2
Bad news for Ecuador whose London embassy will never get rid of this, now, unwanted guest who refuses to clean up after himself and expects the Ecuadorian staff to do it - including his bathroom. Ecuador thought it was getting one over on the US by giving him asylum but it turns out maybe not so much.
13
Mueller is framing Julian Assange as a Russian asset along with Donald Trump. They say he got the Podesta/DNC emails from the Russians who hacked them. This is provably 100% false. The Russians did not "meddle" in our elections - who did meddle was the CIA, FBI, DNI and British intelligence conspiring with the DNC and the Clinton campaign. "Guccifer 2.0" was not a Russian hacker but a DNC techie pretending to be a Russian hacker. The Podesta DNC emails came to Wikileaks in a completely different file from DNC staffer Seth Rich. Julian Assange has said he has physical proof of this - likely a thumb drive with Seth Rich's thumbprint on it. Julian can bust the whole Russiagate frame-up wide open - that's why they are trying to get him.
6
Nonsense. Sounds like you belong with the flat earthers and chemtrail crowd.
1
@Tony Wicher - LOL. Bravo! Jonathan Swift would be jealous!
Indicting Assange secretly is saying “You’re right about us. And guess what? We don’t care. We’re the real government and that democracy schtick is for fools and school children. So get ready for a subterranean windowless room with 24 hour a day fluorescent light, ‘cause that’s how we roll.”
6
"WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers. The hackings were a major part of Moscow’s campaign of disruption."
This is almost total fabrication. Where is the PROOF that WikiLeaks gained the emails from Russian intelligence vs. Chinese or others? And that last sentence is absolute fabrication hanging very loosely from the first assumption! Journalists - PLEASE start doing the job of journalism and stop injecting your personal opinion, hate, and bias into everything.
9
The Real Easy,
Not to worry. The special counsel has proof. You can bet on it.
1
I'm for freedom of the press but there are limits to everything. Even logging on to "view" someone else's emails without their consent is a crime.
How did Assange and Wikileaks come to possess stolen personal emails from John Podesta? Seems important to discover.
The purpose was very likely to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in cooperation with Russia.
Since Australia and the US are close allies, Australia might have some legal options governing this activity as well.
2
The prosecution of Julian Assange poses a serious threat to press freedom. It's as simple as that. To report on secret activities done by governments around the world is at the core of good journalism, especially if these activities harm society as a whole. I cannot even begin to imagine the precedent this indictment will set if it continues.
8
@Charlie E....."To report on secret activities done by governments around the world". ....Hello. The DNC is a private organization. It is not part of any government. They have a right to privacy just as much as you have a right not to have your credit card and bank routing numbers stolen and published.
6
@Charlie E.,
Julian Assange, Edwin Snowden, Chelsea Manning et al are the real threat to press freedom.
They've all been duped by the Kochs, the Mercers, the Smythes etc. that the press is, as president bone-spurs says, the enemy of the people.
When in actuality the press is the enemy of crooks like assange, snowden and manning all three of whom stole then released intelligence information that put our intelligence officers in the field at risk.
They are all traitors and I hope they rot.
@Victorious Yankee
All three of the people you hate exposed wrongdoing by your own government. Unless you were a part of that wrongdoing, I can't see any reason for you to object.
There is no evidence that any intelligence officers were put at risk.
Assange is not a US citizen, so he cannot be a "traitor."
2
Keeping charges secret until Assange is in custody kind of indicates that Assange was to be mislead into giving himself up on the basis that such charges weren’t going to be pursued. Assange may be sneaky but the US government can’t be trusted either.
3
@John Brews ..✅✅
Sealed indictments are a standard practice by prosecuters in many types of cases. That's all this is; nothing sneaky or nefarious.
Perhaps not a mistaken reveal so much as a purposeful warning to the white house that the long arm of the law is about to reach out and touch those who maybe least expect it. Much easier to get rid of trump by surrender than by impeachment.
2
Assange is not an American, he was never part of any military, intelligence or political organization in the US. He betrayed no one. What jurisdiction does the US have over Assange?
3
He stole from an American. Have you not seen the Russians and Iranians and Chinese being indicted here? If your private info had been stolen I doubt you’d be speaking up for Assange.
3
@J R
Not as simple as that. If he stole from an American, but the crime did not take place in the US, then there is no American jurisdiction.
The Chinese case is much more complex. The Russia ones are just silly... there's no way they'll ever get tried in American court. Tried in absentia, possibly but outcome not enforceable outside the USA
2
@J R
There's no evidence that Assange stole anything.
He received information that he published. That's what the press does.
2
Releasing private political emails that were stolen by a hostile foreign government to influence voters doesn't sound like freedom of the press.
It's strange that Assange only criticizes the United States and not authoritarian countries that regularly commit human rights abuses (like Russia for example.)
Assange seems to be an asset of Vladimir Putin. Perhaps Snowden is too.
7
Julian Assange is a hero about to become a martyr! As a Trump voter Democrat, I am disgusted by this move and it will cost Trump my vote, even if I will chose not to cast my vote in 2020. I prefer to be informed, and make my own decisions based on facts, revealed by Wikileaks, not fake Propaganda fueled by either party in power!
5
Then you wouldn’t mind releasing all your emails. Freedom of the press, and all that!
2
Assange selectively publishes stolen documents, to fit his own political agenda. As much as I dislike the guy personally, he really isn't doing anything new or different from other people that are allowed to get away with it. He didn't hack the election, Russia didn't hack the election, Facebook didn't hack the election... people willingly voted this way. Mistruths or not. People believed the lies. Perhaps we should be directing all the money guided towards justice and revenge on teaching Americans how to think for themselves and not believe everything they see and read.
2
Assange: Spy or transparency advocate? Journalist or hostile agent?
What would've happened if the NYTs had anonymously received Clinton's emails? Would they have sat on that information? Of course not. So what makes Assange different?
I personally don't trust the man. But remember that Trump is the head of the executive branch. There will be more Trumps in history. Do you want men like that deciding who gets to publish information? That is, who is a journalist?
We should be very careful with this issue.
3
The arc of history sure contains some strange episodes. Someone on Team Mueller was either very tired or very calculating.
Given Mueller's tendency to use building blocks in legal strategy, I'm wondering if indicting Assange, despite the fact he's in that embassey, is the best way he can set up an indictment of Stone and Corsi?
After all, he's not after Assange per se.......or is he?
47
@ChristineMcM
Don't assume it was the Mueller team. Various agencies and parts of agencies have been investigating Assange for over a decade.
11
@ChristineMcM
You are assuming that this happened on the Mueller Team´s watch. That is not clear in the article. Let´s wait and see who is responsible for the glitch.
13
The copy and paste clearly was done by the lawyers (and staff) filing charges against the alleged sex abuser. But the material copied had to have come from a team Mueller draft indictment, to my view prepared in advance to advance the Stone/Accorsi filings yet to come. if Mueller establishes a reason to indict Assange for conspiring with the Russians, its easier to establish same for anyone in the Trump campaign working with Assange/Russia to time the dumps of emails.
All this is to say, Mueller builds legal strategies like a wall of evidence, brick by brick, puzzle piece by puzzle piece.
My biggest question is how did the copy and paste person manage to have access to Mueller's draft? Are documents stored in folders that close to other folders and files at DOJ?
that's a really scary prospect for any person with access to all folders.
Lots of room for deception. For all we know, Whitaker himself is messing around with the files in an attempt to mess with Mueller!
12
So, the guy published the truth, and now he is labelled as 'an enemy of the people'. Seems to me, Trump is not only one in America who doesn't like the truth.
9
@yulia....The guy published the truth using stolen private documents in conjunction with a foreign country and timed the release in order to subvert an election. Further, you have no idea whether Assange may have obtained stolen property and received valuable compensation in return.
6
@yulia,
If only Julian did something actually useful like releasing president bone-spurs' taxes.
4
A document dump is just a heap of data. Data isn't truth. Data doesn't become truth until it's analyzed by people with experience and ethics. Which Assange does not have. He's just a clever thief and his thoughts we can see now are mainly a criminal's notion of idealism.
2
Please provide the proof that is stated in your fourth paragraph that:
"WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers. "
4
@Rick B,
Sure thing.
As soon as president bone-spurs releases his taxes as he promised he would, we'll show our proof.
Deal?
1
@Victorious Yankee
In a real democracy, the deal you propose would be unnecessary. The release of Trump's tax returns and proof that the Russians were behind the leaking of the Democrats' emails should have been made available a long time ago.
@Rick B,
In a real Democracy the person who receives the most votes wins.
Even with the stiff competition in 2018, is this the ironic event-of-the-year or what ?!
2
This is not about press freedom. It’s about criminal conspiracy. If he were an American, it’d be about treason.
Freedom of the press is not a shield covering criminal conduct.
5
@Lisa
No, even then it would not be about treason.
Very few people in the US have ever be prosecuted for treason.
Not even the Rosenbergs, hio were executed for allegedly giving the USSR US A-bomb secrets.
1
Assange may well be a low-life and facilitator of Russian tampering with US elections, but secret trails, secret prosecutions, and a lack of transparency are the hall-mark of despotisms...Russia, Saidi Arabia, Turkey, Philippines...
And if Assange's main crime is being "a chaos agent, trafficking in stolen goods and working with Russia to disrupt Western society and democracy," why are OTHERS involved in the SAME activities NOT also being charged (either secretly or publicly) with election-tampering, fraud, perjury, and collusion with a hostile foreign power? And punished?
Trump, Putin, Bannon, Manaforte, and the rest of the "dirty tricksters" who've hijacked our democracy.
1
@NYer,
Mueller is doing exactly that right now.
Mueller’s team has indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 "dirty tricksters" and three companies — that we know of.
Where have you been these past two years?
4
Gee perhaps Assange wasn't paranoid to fear he would be kidnapped, er "rendered" to the fearful 'justice' system of the United States as punishment for having embarrassed the capos in Washington.
Such irony to hear all the pro-censorship liberals denounce Assange because he also embarrassed Hilary Clinton. Although I don't believe he published anything that wasn't true. It just goes to show there isn't a whit of difference between the Trumpites and the Hileryites.
As for those who sputter that Assange isn't a "legitimate" reporter like the truthy NYT, they would do well to recall the key role played by the "legitimate" media in dutifully mouthing the obvious propaganda lies about WMD that led to war and the death of millions. I could go on endlessly about the dishonest reporting in the "legitimate" media but I'd run out of space. In the meantime I'd prefer to read through leaked materials for myself.
11
@ARThe commenters here are no more "liberal" than Hillary Clinton is. They are Neo-Conservatives.
6
So Assange was right all along. That whole “rape” investigation was a subterfuge.
9
@EJS,
Yup.
Exactly the same subterfuge that "I'll release my taxes as soon as the IRS is done with their audit" was.
2
WikiLeaks is not "journalism."
Indiscriminate dumping of raw primary material ("truthful information," according to Assange's attorney) into the public domain is not "journalism," which requires educated, reasoned, balanced interpretation, observation and dissemination of written and recorded documentation from the individuals or organizations involved, and especially provides for opposing sides to counter-argue or defend their own point of view or actions.
Furthermore, as many here have already pointed out, Assange is actually NOT indiscriminate, but most discriminating in choosing which material to gather, accept (on behalf of whom we are not certain) and release with his own god-like determined timing as if he were throwing thunderbolts from the heavens. His credibility as a "journalist" or purveyor of "truth" of any kind should therefore be subject to extreme scrutiny.
16
@Jan Assange is a revealer. His freedom of expression is a right of every human being, or should be.
7
@idimalink...Until he receives stolen private property in collusion with a foreign government in an attempt to subvert a democratic election.
5
@idimalink If he actually was a revealer, he would have balanced what he reveals. His enablers in this case have at least as much dirt (probably more) that he completely ignored.
1
I am all for the release of government documents, as long as it doesn't harm national security. But if Mr. Assange knowingly conspired with a foreign government to influence an American election, that goes beyond the bounds of journalism. Concealing a source is one thing, but he emphatically stated that the documents did not come from Russia. We need to know what he knows about Russia's interference in the election.
The Times should not make common cause with Mr. Assange. He is not held to the strictures of a journalistic organization. If the Times were to release documents damaging to national security, or conspire with a foreign government to influence an election, they would not be able to run to an embassy and hide. They have some measure of accountability, unlike Mr. Assange.
Due to the possibility that he aided a foreign government in influencing an American election, combined with his personal indiscretions, Mr. Assange needs to be pursued before he escapes to Russia. While he is not to be presumed guilty, he should stand trial rather than hide in an embassy.
Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of democracy, and they must be protected. Mr. Assange should not be allowed to hide behind the guise of journalism.
9
@Prince
Assange has no obligation to favor the American government over the Russian government. Many people in the world do.
The US government is just as foreign to Assange as the Russian government.
He is not subject to US laws.
The NY Times did publish documents detrimental to the US government. They were called the Pentagon Papers, and they revealed how the US government lied the US into a war in Vietnam.
2
While mny will talk about the horrendous Constitutional implications of an indictment for publishing truthful information—to wit, the 2016 emails of Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and John Podesta—and the implications are truly catastrophic to the very survival of the First Amendment, look at the larger context. By indicting Assange, Mueller seeks to shut him up about the biggest intelligence fraud yet conducted in human history—the fraud that the Russians hacked the DNC and Podesta and handed Donald Trump the Presidency. As the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have repeatedly demonstrated, "the evidence" that such a hack occurred, as recounted by Special Counsel Mueller in his indictments of several GRU officers, is extremely dubious at best and more than likely entirely fabricated. The likelihood is that the Clinton and Podesta emails were leaked to Wikileaks and that Julian Assange and former British Ambassador Craig Murray know the name or names of the leaker or leakers, as they have said, publicly and that the leakers were not Russian state actors. The truth behind the "Russiagate," known by Assange, will also spectacularly explode the entire probe should President Trump, follow through in declassifying the documents upon it rests.
3
@jdd The whole point of making the First Amendment part of the Constitution is that the First Amendment implications *are* the larger context than how this affects any individual's political fortunes.
If you support busting the freedom of the press in the name of either condemning or supporting the president, then you don't believe in constitutional government as much as you thought you did.
2
@jdd
We don't know that Assange is a target of Mueller's investigation.
Secret charges?
It's almost as if we were living in a country behind the Iron Curtain rather than the in the country that allegedly defeated all of that evil stuff. Then again, quite a lot about this country seems topsy-turvy these days.
5
So criminals should be told when they’re under investigation? Prosecutors have to build a case before they can charge someone with a crime. It’s difficult to do that if someone can destroy evidence or escape before trial begins. Case in point: Assange unable to be tried for alleged rape in Sweden because he’s a fugitive.
1
@KC
Someone is charged when the investigation is complete. You don't charge someone to investigate the crime.
Secret charges are distinctly anti-democratic. Would you expect to appear in court NOT knowing what you're accused of?
@Atlant Schmidt Except that's NOT what this is. Please read more.
Listen to the solid citizens bristling with righteousness here as they contemplate the wickedness of Julian Assange. Does anyone recall the content of the emails released by WikiLeaks? They demonstrated that the DNC was conspiring with the Clinton campaign to undermine the Sanders campaign. The release of the emails was a public service, and this is true wherever the information came from — the Russians, the Martians or whoever. As far as that goes, Assange has made a good case for his assertion that he did not know the source of the leak. The US security agencies ask us to take their word for their assertion that Russians were behind it. Liberals, who used to show a reasonable mistrust of entities such as the CIA, the NSA and the FBI, now show a touching faith in their utterances — all in the fond hope that the Russian connection will destroy the Antichrist, Trump. There really is no hope for the United States, given the absolute fatuity of Republicans and Democrats alike.
5
@Alexander Scala...."They demonstrated that the DNC was conspiring with the Clinton campaign to undermine the Sanders campaign."....The DNC is a private organization, and as such they have the right to privacy and the right to pursue any course they choose. What would you say if you found out the DNC was plotting to undermine the Trump campaign?
2
DNC is a political organization that has oversized influence on American elections, and therefore, is a fair game.
4
I would think the person who stole classified or personal information, and then released it would be the defendant in these cases, such as what Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden (now sojourning in Russia) did for WikiLeaks. Mr. Assange just redirected the information, as a legitimate news organization essentially does.
2
@David Godinez...Was Assange in collusion with a foreign government? Did he receive compensation for publishing stolen private material? Was his goal to inform or to deliberately subvert an election? How is this any different then the Water Gate break in?
2
Anyone else think this indictment is simply leverage to coax Assange into revealing his communications with the Trump campaign leading to the 2016 election?
Mueller (if it's his indictment) could simply offer Assange immunity from all charges so that he could leave the embassy and (try to) resume a normal life, in exchange for everything he has regarding his dealings with the Trump campaign before during and after the election.
Sweden dropped the rape investigation, which leaves only the outstanding warrants in London for missing a court appearance, and potential extradition to the US. If Mueller negates that and can assure him that the UK warrants go away as well, you can bet Assange will cut a deal. I'm sure six years inside that building has made him a bit stir-crazy and particularly amenable to negotiating.
Assange is not a foreign agent (he's out for himself only, and the truth, whatever that means these days), but was a stooge/conduit who was taken advantage of by a superior-minded Putin/Russia, which I'm sure he regrets now.
Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
While the mistaken reference to Assange's name in an unrelated court filing certainly indicates there are similar documents where he is the subject. Absent more evidence, it does not absolutely support the conclusion that those documents were filed. When cutting and pasting material from one document to another, it is recommended to use the Find and Replace function in Word to weed out embarrassing references. Proofreading also helps.
1
So let me get this straight. If I am in the US and I someone sends me documents from the Saudi government and I put them on a website, I am now guilty of violating laws of a country I've never set foot in?
2
@Peter Piper .....Did you know they were stolen private property? Were you paid for publishing them or did you receive some other material benefit? Did you time their publication in a manner to influence the outcome of an election? Were you in collusion with a foreign government?
3
Wow! The all-time cannibalizing another document error. Hard to believe that a secretary’s “copy and paste” decision could result in this. You’d think they’d “copy” from something less important and classified. I’m glad this has come out, because such a charge has no business being “secret” to begin with . It has nothing to do with terrorism or national security.
2
From today's NYT- how reporters operate and how leaks are used https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/personaltech/the-essentials-for-covering-silicon-valley-burner-phones-and-doorbells.html
I'll take no position on the Assange-is-the-devil vs Assange-is-an-angel argument. All leakers have motives. Some the leakers are public spirited; others are involved in policy battles. And the press (including the NYT) often has a dog in the fight. Good reporters dig; editors often emphasis or bury stories for ideological reasons; owners hire editors who do what they are told And as papers have become less profitable- and cheaper to buy- owners are often folks looking for a megaphone.
1
If there was ever a case to be made for treason against our democracy, it lies with what this guy has done.
9
@Matthew Treason is specifically defined as taking up arms against your own government. The US was never Assange's government, and he didn't kill anybody. Ergo, not treason.
2
@Matthew
There's no such crime as 'treason against (our) democracy'.
Assange isn't an American so he can't commit treason (except against his native Australia).
Assange could have committed the crime of espionage.
1
To the simpleminded, he's a hero when he releases information that embarrasses someone they don't like, and a traitor otherwise. But the real quesiton is: Is this really the guy you want deciding what the public should know or not know?
7
Any comparison of Mr. Assange to a legitimate news organization like The New York Times is flawed because the latter demonstrably publishes all information of public interest that it receives while Mr. Assange, as has been documented, withholds information that doesn't serve his personal political agenda. He is no more a representative of "the free press" than are the Russians working full time on the Internet to poison U.S. discourse.
That said, it's sad but a fact that the disposition of our claims against Mr. Assange should not be entrusted to anyone working at the direction of Mr. Trump.
6
All information? You must be sleeping last ten years. NYT sat in the story about electronic spying of the Government on its citizens as well as on the citizens including politicians in the other countries. How is that 'publishing ALL information'? Every news organisation has the editor who decides what to publish and what not to, the journalists are decide what they should omit from their stories all the Times. so, how is it different from Assange?
4
@yulia
If I may, I think you have highlighted the exceptions that prove the rule. Such shortfalls are rightly held up as prods for the organization to achieve what it aspires to and what we expect of it. Nothing of the sort can be said about Mr. Assange and his "organization."
@Jonathan This argument is patently absurd.
The NYTimes, like all other sources of information, filters what they get. That's why you don't see the rantings of random Internet conspiracy theorists on the front page of the Gray Lady. Assange has every right to do the same thing.
4
Revealing government misdeeds and corruption should NEVER be treated as a crime. Democracy depends on truth and freedom of truthful information.
WikiLeaks and Assange are not perfect, but that doesn't matter. For the most part they have published information IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST about corrupt or embarrassing acts that people in power want to hide. That is vital to democracy. It is completely different from publishing nerve gas recipes, nuclear weapon blueprints or other legitimately dangerous information.
There seem to be a lot of shills on here posting negative comments about WikiLeaks and Assange at the behest of those corrupt people who free so threatened when the truth is exposed. We need more heroes who are willing to stand up for truth.
12
@David Booth The democratic party is not the government. John Podesta, not the government. And none of the publication could be considered "in the public interest" without the premise that injuring the democratic party is in the public interest.
Besides, who says it was "the truth"? Reportage indicas that false documents were embedded in the dump. Nobody checked on the veracity either before or after.
Years ago I saw Assauge as a rebel to established authority that kept too much secret that should be open in free society. Now I just see him as a low life who just reveals secrets and dispenses lies because he can make money by doing in and it’s easier that any other work he could do.
7
Should be Assange, sorry.
I don't think this is such a big surprise to Assange. He understands that Americans want to arrest him. That's why he lives in Ecuadorian embassy.
5
Re the argument that real newspapers like NYT also publish leaked documents, and are therefore no better than Wikileaks:
If the NYT had been approached by Russian (or Chinese, whatever) agents offering computer files which the Times KNEW were illegally stolen from Trump's personal laptop, would they (a) publish them anyway because they don't support Trump, or (b) report the incident to the FBI? I suspect the latter, but hope that's not naive.
1
Yet Ms. Manning who leaked classified information to Assange is out of the slammer courtesy of our last President: so one conspirator Manning is free and is doing her thing, but the government wants to go after the publisher of not classified information but information hacked by the Russians and given to Assange. Manning's offense was far worse but now the government is going after a publisher of materials some one else hacked? It makes no sense. If Manning were still in prison for her offense ( the term was 35 years and she was confined for about 7 or was it less?) maybe the government's prosecution of Assange would make sense.
3
It's because Manning embarrassed Bush, while Assange embarrassed Clinton.
1
@Bian Wait, so Assange can't be prosecuted AT ALL because Manning "only" spent seven years in prison?
That's justice? Wow.
"...no other procedure is likely to keep secret that (Assange) has been charged". Maybe we can read the rest of this on Wikileaks.
1
WOW, it’s mind bending how many liberals and progressives fell for Assange who was really helping Trump the whole time. Now it’s time to pay, please bring him to the United States.
3
It just shows that most progressive is for the truth even if it hurts them. Isn't that admirable position? Or should we be for truth only when it helps us?
1
With respect to the greatest military misjudgement of modern times; It is going to be seen in hindsight as an historical obscenity that in first quarter of the 21st Century GW Bush was befriended by the Obamas and Julian Assange was prosecuted by the United States.
7
@CK
When everybody knows the greatest military blunder of our time was either when Hollywood reagan rewarded the Iranian hostage takers with hundreds of millions in US weaponry or when AWOL bush invaded Iraq as punishment for Al-Qaeda Afghans attacking us on 9/11/2001.
1
Assange has become multiparty punching bag . The evidence revels he did nothing . Now he’s part of a Trump ,Russian conspiracy to rule the world .
Set him free or forever have him a thorn in our fascist hide .
6
@Recovering White Nationalist ,
Nah.
We're gonna' nail his whiney, treasonous libertarian hide to the wall.
But feel free to mount a clandestine rescue operation to save his thin skin.
But y'all had better hurray.
Now that russia knows Assange is a target of Mueller's investigation , old Julian had better hire a food-taster.
1
I dunno what Assange did or didn’t do, but I do know that generally speaking, there’s something very wrong with the notion that any one person should be making the decision to publish highly-classified material.
It’s too much power. So if you’re angry at what Facebook just got nabbed for doing—having a select few whose motives are mainly money and power make decisions about disseminating information that profoundly affect us all—well, you can’t very well turn around and give this guy a pass.
There’s a real arrogance to him, and to Greenwald, that I don’t trust.
4
This isn't about "press freedoms" or speaking truth to power. It's about using Wikileaks to influence an election, possibly with Russia's involvement. Assange offered information to a presidential candidate in order to harm his opponent. This is evidenced by his texts to Roger Stone. He is not a hero and never has been.
6
Sure, but shouldn't the elections based on truth? Or you believe that lies are better basis for people choice?
1
@ajbown Are you saying that if, say, the BBC, publishes information that changes the opinions of Americans enough to sway an election, the reporter who found the information and wrote the story should be in jail?
I think not.
2
America is an Empire of Delusion, and truth-tellers are hated. That's why Assange, Snowden, Manning, Daniel Ellsberg and others have been slagged and pursued.
Assange and his whistleblower sources do the work other journalists should also do.
It was great that he published the DNC emails, so we could see how corrupt the DNC was.
7
The guy has basically been under the equivalent of house arrest for eight years now. How much more punishment is required?
4
@Peter Piper
"How much more punishment is required?"
Prior to any "punishment, to capture him and bring him to trial for conspiring with Russians to befoul our elections. If found guilty, you get punished deeply for this.
That's pretty simple, no?
3
Much more, actually. Assange has been a destructive force in the world and should spend the rest if his life in supermax.
1
@Nelly "pretty simple, no?" ... why is it that so people people are trying to sound like they're not a native speaker of English these days?
People loved Assange because he could "stick it to the man" by publishing classified information about our country's bad behaviors. I understand that, but that was then. Now, look at the man Assange has stuck US with, because of trafficking in stolen emails in cooperation with Putin. Assange has no guiding values besides creating chaos, toying with world powers, and elevating himself.
And by the way, I'd like to know what other indictments are currently under seal, Donny Jr.
3
Is there a difference, legal or otherwise, between the "release of documents" and the "publishing" of documents? The NYT's is using both interchangeably making this reader confused about whether the NY Times released the Pentagon Papers or published them?
1
I'm not disputing the fact that governments do things in secret that the public should be aware of.
The problem is that Julian Assange is a sociopath wearing the cloak of a noble teller of truths.
5
Julian Assange is an enemy of the United States. He is not a journalist.
3
This should be settled law, as per New York Times Co. v. United States, (per curiam) 403 U.S. 713, 91 S. Ct. 2140, 29 L. Ed. 2d 822 (1971) (the Pentagon Papers case).
6
@mikecody
You ignore a critical aspect of the PP case which is fact that Mr Ellsberg was the author of them and knew every word in them and had consulted with members of Congress about them before finally deciding to share them with a known newspaper.
It was not a matter of him going into the file room and grabbing whatever he could carry out and then giving it to an anonymous entity he had no way of knowing anything about while never knowing exactly what he had given away.
It is not settled. Wikileaks is not a news organization of any kind. It is a criminal enterprise set up to make money by publishing stolen private and secret documents.
1
@magicisnotreal If you read the decision, at no point in the rationale is the authorship of the papers even mentioned, much less used as justification. It was entirely decided on the basis that the government did not have the right to prevent the publishing of classified information, no matter how the media outlet received it.
You may have your opinion of the validity of Wikileaks as a news organization, but they are nor significantly different from AP or UPI, in so far as they distribute information collected by other sources. As such, they are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as the Times.
3
@mikecody
AP and UPI are legitimate news organizations wikileaks is and always was a criminal enterprise set up by a criminal to profit from his crimes and the crimes of others.
The knowledge that the PP were a known quantity also played a part in that ruling as did what I listed even though it is not a subject in the written ruling.
Nothing Assange or wikileaks has done is legal or right. That some have managed to make lemonade out of these lemons is no credit to him.
Putin's friend? Who helped get Trump elected? Three possible explanations spring to mind: 1) Assange changed sides and potentially has evidence that could incriminate Trump and his shadowy Russian creditors; 2) Sheer incompetence on the part of Trump's DoJ (the incompetence hypothesis spans the executive branch agencies, though); 3) Intentional WH leak designed to distract (suggesting perhaps we've reached a more desperate and dangerous level of public and media manipulation); 4) He's sick and his health care requirements require him to leave the embassy.
I think, based on the current CEO, we can rule out any interest or knowledge in national security or some greater good. Too bad, it seemed like when he came out Assange had an interest in exposing state secrets, of which there are far too many. He made his own choice on that score years ago (to save his own hide). And the press went for the salacious junk food in his data dumps, left the damning evidence of an Afghan campaign gone rogue for scholars and bookworms.
All anyone can safely assume is that there is something rotten festering below the surface.
5
Here's the most obvious secret in the world: Ecuador is acting at the behest of Russia in protecting Assange. Take a wild guess at who the largest foreign investor is in Ecuador? Russia. Take a wild guess at which country is supplying everything from coffee, shrimp, cheese, and dozens of other essentials in contravention of international trade restrictions against Russia? Ecuador. Who initially offered Snowden asylum? Ecuador. Where is he now? Russia.
Come on folks. Wake up.
7
So Ecuador supports Russia in its fight to keep American citizens informed about misdeeds of their Government? And is it bad thing how? Actually, the American media should do that job, but by some reason it is not doing that.
2
The article disparagingly characterizes Mr. Assange as "a cult figure for those advocating greater transparency..." Would the Times characterize Daniel Ellsberg (leaker of the Pentagon Papers) as a "cult" figure? Does the Times not advocate greater transparancy? Surely it recalls Justice Hugo Black's statement in "New York Times v. United States" (1971) that "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government"
What is beyond cheek has been the constant blurring of what Mr. Assange has been accused of doing. As the article concedes "the Democratic emails were not government documents or national security secrets."
As stated in a related article in today's Times, what the Wikileaks at issue showed was that the DNC "conspired with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to undermine her primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders." Whatever personal hubris might think, the leaks obviously did not concern "national security." But they did reveal corruption of the democratic process by the Clinton campaign and its network of contacts in the press and elsewhere.
Somehow revealing Clinton's undermining of Sander's campaign gets conjured into working with a foreign power to undermine American elections, even though (as reported) "[a]mong United States officials, the emerging consensus is that Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks probably have no direct ties to Russian intelligence services."
6
First off, this guy ain’t Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg worked for years in the Pentagon, took physical risks in Vietnam, and when he gave the Papers to the press, he stayed around and took his lumps rather than running, alibing, and hiding.
Second off, I continue to be shocked that the Followers of St. Bernie are shocked that my god! Political orgs act...POLITICALLY!!
Third, those DNC releases helped elect Donald Trump. Hooray for you guys.
Fourth, Assange released into the wild a lot more than political memos.
4
Wow, we should tell the truth only when it suits us, in all other cases we should see it as"fake news" and people who speaks the truth as 'enemy of the people'? whom does it remind me?
1
The emails showed that, AFTER hillary had clinched the nomination, ONE dnc staffer groused that Bernie refused to get off stage so they could get on with the main game of running against Trump. Due to arcane campaign finance rules, money couldn’t be released to the state parties until there was a declared nominee, so his refusal was starving the states of badly needed funds. Hillary lent a million dollars to the state party coffers to cover the problem caused solely by Bernie.
I’d grouse too.
If you’re so interested in transparency, why can’t we see Bernie’s staff’s emails? Wonder what they’d show? Oh, but I forgot, this is the candidate who won’t release his tax returns, and refuses to finalise his FEC filings... transparency my eye.
2
This does not make his lies true. He is not a journalist. Wikileaks is a criminal enterprise.
The very first thing of Mannings that he "published" was a video he doctored to make it seem to verify his lies. To an honest person that ends his "career as a journalist". There is nothing truthful about him or Wikileaks. You would think his life long irrational antipathy that looks an awful lot like visceral hatred for the "US" would be a tip off there was something very wrong with how his mind works.
He invented something that did not exist to avoid valid sex crimes charges. He conned dozens of friends and acquaintances to help him avoid facing those sex crime charges. When the British courts came down in favor of Sweden he jumped bail. Honest people regard such behavior as consciousness of guilt.
By all accounts he has victimized every single person with whom he has ever been in contact in his entire life all the while portraying himself as a victim. He invented a fiction of himself as a journalist to justify his trafficking in stolen documents for profit. And a shocking number of people I would have regarded as rational before this actually agree with that fiction!
The truth is Mr Assange has been a ner do well all of his life. He has never "held down" a legitimate job. He has been transient, unemployed, emotionally unstable and untrustworthy all of his life. Even the people who for some reason in spite of the facts still support him say this about him.
4
Trump replaced all the US attorneys and prosecutors and this is what we get? "Inadvertent leaks" of pending charges? Whether it's laziness or incompetence, it's inexcusable, but so totally in line with everything from the top down. Hey, while we're at it, let's give these guys $20 million worth of federal security detail.
1
I think Julian Assange needs to try on some prison uniforms while he is still in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
This way he’ll be prepared when a U.S. Court sentences him to Life in Prison........
Said of Julian Assange from another Times article:
“He views everything through the prism of how he’s treated. America and Hillary Clinton have caused him trouble, and Russia never has.”
Yes, I am certain he does, and Russia has gotten to him the same way they get to all of their marks and useful idiots; with bribes of vast amounts of money. No philosophical or political justifications, no grand vision of a better and less conflicted World, just money or honey or both.
As the NYTs wonderful three part series of Soviet and Russian disinformation illustrates so clearly, their Intelligence and their Machiavellian use of it is World Class, ultimately sophisticated; no one has the chops or licks to get even close to them.
The reason is that there is 0 oversight of Russian Intelligence, there are no laws to hamper them or a Congress to dupe. The Russian Government and it's ruling Oligarchs are beyond any internal laws that may constrain them.
Assange is another useful idiot bribed by money from Organized Crime. Catch him, bring him here to help Mueller, lock him up for treason.
-------------------
Lest we forget; when Sean Hannity's Twitter went down, a woman imitated his account and the Traitor Assange said he had info for Hannity about Mark Warner, the minority leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee...
Blackmail and bribing. Ask Lyndsey Graham, seems like a pretty safe bet to me. Since that first golf game with Trump, Graham has been remarkably malleable.
12
Assange snookered Manning and let hif take the fall, but what would have happened to Assange if he had revealed some of Putin's secrets?
7
So the cut-and-paste drafting prosecutors screwed up, confirming that if the US is ever able to get their hands on Assagne, they'll prosecute him. If Assagne and his lawyers hadn't lways assumed that that was the case, they're idiots. If
Assagne ever flees his Ecuadorean coop in England, the Brits will hand him over to Sweden, but once Sweden gets through with him, it won't extradite him to the US or anywhere else because Sweden, I believe, has a long- established nonextradition policy, at least on political issues such as here.
For all those against a prosecution of Assange, first, you don't know what the indictment is for so I don't see how you can be against it without reading it. Second, assuming it is for leaking hacked documents, doesn't it matter to you that the documents were emails sent by private citizens though working on a campaign? Doesn't it matter that the hackers were trying to influence the election? Doesn't it matter that the hackers were Russian? Doesn't it matter that Assange is not a U.S. citizen or resident alien? Doesn't it matter that Assange is not a journalist but merely a leaker? This case is quite distinguishable from the Snowden matter. Snowden leaked government documents (not campaign material) that he stole himself. The public interest in disclosure is much greater in the Snowden matter. Snowden is a U.S. citizen as well, as is Bradley Manning. In short, the arguments disfavoring a prosecution of Assange in the Snowden matter are stronger than in the leak of the democratic and Clinton campaign matter. Assange's motive was revenge not transparency.
10
it doesn't matter what are his motives. Usually, in the Democratic countries people prosecuted for actions, not for motives. And some people don't see anything criminal in his actions (he published the truth), and that's why it looks as a politically motivated indictment and that is why people against it. If the Government has something more on Assange than his publications, it should reveal to the people that the people knew that the Government has legitimate reason for the indictment.
1
@Robert J
"Doesn't it matter to you that the documents were emails sent by private citizens though working on a campaign?" Yes it does. That means that the information is more likely to be of public interest and import.
"Doesn't it matter that the hackers were trying to influence the election?" Not really. Everyone who writes anything about politics could reasonably be accused of trying to influence the election.
"Doesn't it matter that Assange is not a U.S. citizen or resident alien?" Yes it does. It means that there's a significant question as to whether the US courts even have jurisdiction to try him.
"Doesn't it matter that Assange is not a journalist but merely a leaker?" No, because the freedom of the press is not limited to people deemed "journalists" by some authority.
1
No, here's the difference between Assange and the Russians and Trump and accomplices in comparison to, for example, the NYT, WAPO and the Pentagon Papers. The latter were revealing war crimes --even though never prosecuted -- and the former were rigging an election.
10
The press has interpreted the First Amendment repeatedly as a defense against charges of violating laws. I do not read that Amendment as placing them above the three established branches of our government. And, further, any blogger with a web site is now claiming to be a "reporter", protected by that position from criminal charges.
The laws protecting classified material have been tested and are the law of the land. It is not just the originator of a "leak" -- the thief -- of classified material who is covered; anyone knowing the material is classified and still participates in its dissemination is guilty, just as any receiver of stolen goods.
If the press wants to challenge a classification, do it in court. You are not superior to Congress, to SCOTUS, to POTUS.
Enough is enough.
5
@Texas Liberal "If the press wants to challenge a classification, do it in court"
They did, and won. See New York Times Co. v. United States, (per curiam) 403 U.S. 713, 91 S. Ct. 2140, 29 L. Ed. 2d 822 (1971) (the Pentagon Papers case).
3
@Texas Liberal " The laws protecting classified material have been tested and are the law of the land." Neither the DNC's emails nor John Podesta's emails are classified material.
1
I gotta believe this has to do with Assange exposing the DNC corruption that torpedoed Sanders. He's a hero, sometimes heroes pay for their life's work with their lives.
3
@CK....The DNC is a private organization and by his own choice and declaration, Sanders was not even a member.
2
A "private" organization that happens to control half of our election options. Not very democratic, at its heart, and generally controls half of the government. Even the repubs have a more open, democratic nomination process.
2
The dnc emails showed that, AFTER hillary had clinched the nomination, ONE dnc staffer groused that Bernie refused to get off stage so they could get on with the main game of running against Trump. Due to arcane campaign finance rules, money couldn’t be released to the state parties until there was a declared nominee, so his refusal was starving the states of badly needed funds. Hillary lent a million dollars to the state party coffers to cover the problem caused solely by Bernie.
I’d grouse too.
If you’re so interested in transparency, why can’t we see Bernie’s staff’s emails? Wonder what they’d show? Oh, but I forgot, this is the candidate who won’t release his tax returns, and refuses to finalise his FEC filings... transparency my eye.
I'm not a lawyer. However, isn't the headling "secret charges" the same thing as an ordinary "sealed indictment?"
If so, then the people on here who are twisting this into some sort of secret, nefarious plot by the DOJ are wrong. Sealed indictments are issued all the time, i.e. to make sure that the person being indicted doesn't have advance warning and flee the country.
It makes perfect sense that an indictment against Assange would be sealed (i.e. kept "secret") until he is arrested, given the fact that he's on foreign soil and would need to be arrested and extradicted.
If my understanding of this is correct, then the NYTimes headline is a very unfortunate choice of words, and merely inflames more misunderstanding and uninformed emotional reaction about a very complicated international legal situation. Bringing in all the legal details about First Ammendment rights and Freedom of the Press just makes it more complicated for an average reader to ubnderstand (and easier for Trumpist conspiuracy theorists to twist).
I just read the CNN article about this, and it's much more straight-forward and less inflammatory.
Everyone needs to calm down! Trump is fuming, because he senses (or knows) that damaging info is going to come to light soon. It could be because of his answers to Mueller's questions; or it could be his knowing that Mueller's going to release a preliminary report soon; and now we know that it could be because Assange might be forced to squeal. All good news!
2
"thousands of emails that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers."
This is incorrect. The NSA has only expressed moderate confidence in that statement. Moreover, this is an evaluation made from agencies that never actually had access to the DNC servers; the same officials who have everything to lose from Wikileaks credibility. Please do not report these as indisputable facts, instead provide the source of the claim.
8
While the one notable truth-teller sits under impending doom in an Ecuadorian embassy, the media worries about Jim Acosta's right to grandstand at Whitehouse press conferences.
7
@Joseph Overton
If Assange were such a "notable truth-teller", he wouldn't be behaving like such a first-rate coward.
Let him come forth and take responsibility for his actions--that would make him notable.
3
So Assange is a "Journalist" eh? I'd say an honest man doesn't have to hide behind embassy walls. Step forward Mr. Assange the Truth will set you free.
5
Jee, people are going to exile all the time fearing political persecution, and we do not consider them to be dishonest just because they don't want to be a victim of political revenge.
2
@yulia
Agree, to a point, but I don't think Mr. Muller is seeking political revenge.
Secret charges, secret courts, prosecuting journalists, qualified immunity, making new exceptions to Constitutional rights every day is extremely chilling. What have we become since 9/11? Marching towards a totalitarian state with each day, and Times casually quoting the CIA calling journalists as "a hostile intelligence service" when he's an international journalist. The Times should be front and center defending him. You're next.
7
Assange is a political operative/hack working for Russia’s cyber-hacking unit — he participated in the criminal conspiracy organized, financed and executed by the Trump Family and Assorted Hangers-On/Clown Car Crime Syndicate, their crank plutocrat “patriot” patrons, Putie as “Puppet Master”, and extremist gulf Sunni kings and princes, among others, to undermine our democratic processes and ensure Trump’s election. It is not news that his indictment is under seal. “Secret” grand juries are a beautiful thing.
8
This is a propaganda victory for Putin as it makes it clear that the greatest champion of Democracy and critic of Russia is not able to refrain from silencing its own dissidents.
1
The only thing Julian Assange and Jim Acosta have in common is their initials. One is a controversial journalist, unafraid to speak truth to power. The other is a grandstanding blowhard, dedicated to nothing above his own ego.
But look which one the American press considers an emblematic hero.
4
Well, personally I have no sympathy for this little self-appointed God. May he be leaked to a very unpleasant place for his role in skewing the US Presidential election in favor of a megalomaniac crime boss and boosting support from his poor, but often uneducated, marks. Suffering from deep state nightmares and delusions of supremacy, these jingoistic folk were easy for Assange and his handlers to manipulate.
5
I don't understand the surprise, that's the whole reason Assange said he was hiding in the embassy, because he expected to be extradited to the United States for secret charges. Now it is revealed he is under secret charges. He's still not leaving the embassy; so nothing has changed, really.
Meanwhile what about this Seitu Kokayi individual, what were his/her alleged crimes? I suppose if the victim is underage he/she won't be named.
1) Publishing damning evidence against Democrats in coordination with an adversarial foreign power during a critical period leading up to the 2016 presidential election could be seen as election interference.
2) Not to be ignored are the contents of those released emails which - for transparency sake - showed how the Democratic Party manipulated its primary process to favor Hillary Clinton, thereby taking choice out of their constituents' hands. Donna Bazile, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others paid the price for manipulating the Democratic electorate - They got Trump.
5
@JohnBarleycorn...The DNC "and RNC" are private organizations. They can make any rules they want, pursue any goals they want, and in so doing are entitled to privacy if that is what they want.
1
yeah, and money do not affect American election.
Extradition? Most likely not. It will happen differently maybe something like Joubert Tells Joe Turner in Three Days of the Condor.
Joubert: "It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift. "
I generally support those who seek to expose the truth. However, I find it unbelievable that the only information that is ever available to be exposed is bad for the democrats and good for Vlad Putin. Please keep on exposing all you can but if it's always about the democrats then we know that a side has been chosen and exposing the truth is not the motive. Perhaps Putin does have a lot on the GOP and Trump and perhaps that is why they are so in love with Vlad Putin. That would make more sense than believing that only the democrats have anything that can be exposed.
11
@Chris...."I generally support those who seek to expose the truth."......Good. Because that means you are in favor of knowing how, when and, where Wikileaks obtained stolen DNC information.
Doesn't that cover by journalist duty to protect his sources?
When the people are generally for truth, but against it in concrete times, it looks like they supports truth only when the truth suits them. In this case, what is the sin of Assange? Just because his general support for truth is a little bit different than yours?
Occam's razor says this was simply a cut and paste error. But if this was 12 dimensional chess, it could have been done on purpose to prod Assange into some action to help the Mueller probe. Occam would note that it would have been easier to simply unseal the indictment. Occam would also note that with all the turnover in top leadership at Justice, these kinds of rookie mistakes would become more likely. Clearly there is more of this story to be told. Why did the judge accept and seal this bungled document in the first place? Is anyone going to be fired? Who is the author of the recently unsealed document? Are there any possible sealed indictments in EVDA that could be the source of the Assange reference? What is the procedure for handling boilerplate in EVDA? What is the procedure for checking documents before they are filed?
1
As far as I remember, there is no constitutional right to practice espionage on behalf of a hostile foreign power.
12
How telling truth is the act of espionage?
After reading, Assange: A Legal History, it's always reassuring to see how easily justice can be gamed. Assange in the new Roman Polanski. Now back to our credo: Rule Of Law. There are plenty bigger hoaxes than religion, that's for sure.
3
And just why is this a "secret'? The government has been mulling over charges against Julian Assange long enough for this to be a well-established fact.
The only thing left to do now is catch him outside of the Ecuadoran Embassy.
1
Julian Assange may be widely reviled for his publication of classified material and the inference that he is a Russian stooge. However, it is probably vital to consider, at a time that the US is investigating Russian criminality, that Assange revealed American and allied criminality to the world in general. This does not expunge him of sin, but it does amply demonstrate the murderous hypocrisy of those who lead us and of those who oppose us. The rational mind should boggle at the implication.
It may be high time to revisit the recent past: if we investigate Trump and Russia, we whitewash our history by not investigating how and why we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking myriad lives in the process. in effect, the process does become a witch hunt. The West skewers Russia for its ruthless intervention in Crimea and Ukraine when it set the precedent for such outrages by manufacturing lies and motives leading to crimes still in progress. If we want democracy and a return to political stability, we must not wallow in the reverie of silent complicity. Arrange fears extradition to the US and he is correct in doing so, proving the fine line between press freedom and repression.
It is Assange, the odious biting insect he may be, who revealed the depth of allied agenda and its terrible application. He constitutes a dot that help join others together. Nature evolved biting insects for a reason.
2
Ah yes, the gods of cut and paste can be mischievous. And, you can't make a story as amazing as how the error was detected.
An essay question for the day: In what ways are Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, and Julian Assange alike?
2
The sixth amendment gives you the right to be confronted by your accusers. Apparently, now you don't even have the right to know what the charges are. I believe this is exactly what Franz Kafka described. We are charging you, but we can't tell you what you are charged with, and in fact we aren't totally sure ourselves.
4
@No green checkmark... "Apparently, now you don't even have the right to know what the charges are."...That is silly. Why do you have a right to know what the charges are if you haven't been detained?
Secrets and lies, secrets and lies. To some degree, this is true with any government. Who knows, Mr. Assange's priority has been in the same genre as well, right?
Arresting Assange is not an attack on the freedom of the press. He and Wikileaks are not a news organization. Assange was a foreign agent working for an adversarial government that was trying to undermine our democracy by interfering in our election process. He new exactly were the information came from and the purpose of releasing it. He was a Russian accomplice.
277
@Don I would hope he gives up Trump Jr and anyone else involved in the Russian issue.
9
@Don Get real. Assange is the future, if of course the future has semblance of freedom and accountability in it.
7
@Don, I particularly appreciate how it revealed the democratic party was throwing Bernie under the bus, even though I voted for Clinton in the general election. Democrats have ignored the working classes left behind by globalization for too long. If they hadn't have been ignored, con man Trump couldn't have succeeded.
11
As you will likely only be getting out of there horizontally, I’m impressed that you have your computer gaming world and your nursing home all wrapped up in one! Wow, most of us haven’t got that figured out yet. Genius indeed!
4
Wow, this line really stood out for me, "prosecutors had inadvertently pasted text from a similar court filing into the wrong document and then filed it."
That's our Federal justice system today folks, riven by dissent, lacking in leadership, and currently headed by an unvetted, unapproved, inexperienced guy, whose sole reason to be appointed was apparently to shut down criminal inquiries about Trump.
We're seriously falling apart as a nation, and the fish is certainly rotting from the head. I base this judgment on Trump's inexperience, incompetence, lack of self-control, egomania, and corruption.
As for Assange, I've never been comfortable with what he's done, or his own attempts at Machiavellian interference in politics, but I do wonder if the embassy staff is entirely sick of him, all these years later.
3
There is a bit of irony in that headline.
3
One word describers Assange: wicked
Interesting perspective:
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-concluded-prosecution-of-julian-assange-for-publishing-documents-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedom/
2
Trump ought to offer Assange a conditional pardon: come here and tell what he knows about the source of documents and participation of Trump.
If Trump knows he did not do this, then he can prove it this way.
Turn the persecution of Assange against the Democrats, who started it and pursue it. He shouldn't be used by them against himself.
Then again, if he knows he guilty, he can't.
So this is a way to show by his own action which way it really was.
6
@Mark Thomason
Apparently, Trump (through his lawyers) has previously agreed to face extradition to the US if Obama would pardon Chelsea Manning (which of course Obama has done).
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/18/focus-turns-to-julian-assange-after-us-decision-to-free-chelsea-manning
@Mark Thomason,and give up his London balcony? Every picture of him out there on that Ecuadoran embassy balcony waving to his adoring masses I'm reminded of the pope.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35499942
Assange was determined to be kept abitrarily and should be released according to the UN.
8
I'm sorry, but how exactly can the government charge someone in secret? Isn't that a violation of due process? How's the person charged supposed to prepare a defense, especially if the government's been spending months building up a case that you have no awareness of (I'm talking about criminal charges, as distinct from an investigation where no charges have yet been filed)? It sounds Kafkaesque, to be honest.
16
@Bill
..secret charges would not be possible were there more transparency - the very thing Wikileaks provided
2
@Bill
Wait till you discover what happens in a grand jury.
Sounds like the "Star Chamber", actually, which our founding fathers were dead-set against.
1
Looks like the Democrats and so called liberals are so blinded by their hatred against Trump that they are ready to sacrifice their moral principles. Julian Assange is a heroic whistle blower like Edward Snowden, without whose efforts, the dark secrets of the American Government and it’s criminal agencies would not have been exposed.
16
The Justice Department is not “the Democrats” nor are they “the liberals” and I would remind you that they currently serve under a Republican president.
3
@vnag
The Democrats aren’t involved in this whatsoever. This is the Justice Department making the charges. If you’re referring to Robert Mueller, he’s Republican.
3
If you think Snowden or Assange are such noble figures then I suggest you have your identity stolen. Then see what it feels like to have parasites like Snowden and Assange digging through your personal information. Snowden and manning and Assange did tremendous damage to national security and most of those, in the need to know camp, will tell you that persons lost their lives because of these treasonous actions. your bias precedes you.
1
This does not calculate! If one is a DOJ lawyer and "cut and paste" a text into one's document, one is required to read the whole text at least once to ensure language consistency (let alone consistency in names). It is more likely that someone inside the Justice Department wanted to let Mr. Assange know that an indictment against him has been issued and provide him with the actual text, in case he is skeptical.
During president Obama's administration, the US DOJ was hard at work looking for ways to smoke Julian Assange out of Ecuadorean Embassy and into US Federal courts. But with Mr. Trump arrival in the WH, suddenly the interest in Julian Assange died out to the extent that his name disappeared from front pages and many forgot that he existed.
But, apparently Mr. Mueller did not. As outlined in the article, one way for Mr. Mueller to put together a solid case on collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump's campaign is to get Assange talking. Given that he has been effectively imprisoned in that embassy for almost eight years, he may be primed now to come out and sing for his dinner.
For Mr. Mueller to entice Mr. Assange to talk, he needs to have something to exchange. In his business, dropping an indictment is a highly valued currency. Putting the text of that indictment out, is a way to inform Mr. Assange exactly what charges he would avoid, if he makes the deal.
If this is indeed the case, one should expect to see Mr. Mueller around for many more months.
22
@Eddie B. Fair enough, as long as we the people living in this country and also paying for this fiasco are given access to the information. It's time.
"The Justice Department has been studying how to charge Mr. Assange or WikiLeaks with some kind of criminal offense since the site began publishing its trove of secret military and diplomatic documents."
This is what's called a "fishing expedition." It's what corrupt law enforcement authorities do when they want to prosecute a targeted person, possibly for political purposes, who hasn't broken any law. Their main concern is that the documents Wikileaks published reveal secrets about America's illegal wars and invasions in the Middle East and elsewhere. The documents contradict the propaganda disseminated to the media by the Pentagon.
9
Hmmm. It could also be about trying to adapt an imperfect legal system with inadequate tools to halting an unprecedented attack on your society.
Democracy cannot exist without an informed citizenry, voters who can weigh the facts and make an informed decision. What we seem to have now are brand names, burnished public images, parties/tribes competing as if they are sports teams so that we can cheer or hiss when the Pavlovian logos appear on whatever screens we are gazing upon.
We need people who can show us the facts, details, and policies behind the brand logos. What we don't need are more people who tell us only one side of the story by releasing incriminating information on only the candidate(s) they oppose while withholding incriminating evidence against those they support.
Democracy needs the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We may never get to that level, but so far we don't even seem to be trying. Trump lies with impunity while every misstep by his opponents is exposed.
169
@Glassyeyed
Democracy also cannot exist without an educated citizenry, people who can read and reflect. The poor state of public education cripples democracy.
13
@Glassyeyed,
Grow up.
Countries spy on each other.
It's what we do.
Spying is as old as people.
Moses sent Joshua into "The Promised Land" to spy.
That libertarian children like Assange can't understand that ain't America's problem.
But it looks like it has become a HUGE problem for little Julian.
1
@Glassyeyed
What was the big revelation? What was revealed that was a radical departure from what was already assumed by most people paying attention? What has having the assumptions confirmed obtained? I'd say zero. I'd say the confirmation of conspiracies we already presumed has permitted the current mindset where everything is a conspiracy, both the confirmed, presumed, and the wholly fabricated.
1
The pentagon papers, the Downing Street memo are examples of leaks that could and in my opinion should have been used to avert disasters.
Watergate leakers were patriots in many minds. Trump has indicated his scorn for these patriots.
Our founding fathers were considered traitors by many early on in the revolutionary movement.
Currently we have a national chasm as to how confederate generals, politicians and symbols are treated.
Often one persons patriot is another’s traitor.
In this instance the line is further blurred by modern technology and the role of social media, Wikileaks, Twitter, infowars, propaganda on television like Fox News etc...
15
How times have changed.
When Bradley Manning stole US military secrets and sold them to Assange, who promptly leaked them, they became media darlings, because their actions hurt America and more importantly, President Bush.
8
@RS it is amazing to me how commenters here feel empowered to just make things up. Manning did not “sell” documents to Wikileaks. That’s just a lie. And even if she had sold them, it changes nothing about the first amendment issues. Sources sell information to publishers all the time. But in this case, Manning did not. What’s your source for that information?
1
Why is it OK to have all these non-disclosure agreements (e.g., never say anything mean about any Trump or even their handbag businesses) but not OK to have actual national security secrets?
10
Hard to believe he couldn't sneak out of the embassy perhaps, with the use of a doppleganger or a tripleganger, who would the security guard chase?
2
I used to be pro Assange before the 2016 election, but knowing what we know now, I think he should be arrested and lets find out what he knows. I also believe Obama should have made a deal with Snowden to get him back here to the US, even if that meant a pardon.
6
@Missy Translation: I'm against government secrecy and its shady dealings except when it hurts my candidate.
5
@Josh
I can't speak for Missy, but I am against foreign actors trying to influence an election, regardless of whether they are supporting left or right. You should be too.
1
@ajbown "trying to influence an election" you seem to be tacitly ascribing intent to wikileaks, while they have been in the same business for years, elections or not. I do agree with your point though -- although it makes me wonder whether or not you'd consider Christopher Steele's dossier and its use to justify a FISA warrant on a presidential candidate a foreign attempt to influence an election.
1
What you think about Assange is immaterial; if you really are for press freedoms, and for the possibility of actual investigative journalism, as opposed to clickbait, in which, yes, stolen documents from the powerful form the basis for informing the public so, like, democracy can actually happen, you will back the grudging conclusion of the Obama DOJ: you can't prosecute Assange or Wikileaks. Period. For those Brave Resisters to Fascism who need a primer on this basic fact of democracies, read this: https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-concluded-prosecution-of-julian-assange-for-publishing-documents-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedom/
And it doesn't matter if Assange were a mass murderer, let alone a rapist or whatever. None of the rest of it matters at all.
This won't penetrate the fanatical Clintonistas, of course. They, like the Trumpers, are very good at self-serving doublethink. Well, many people are, but if you don't point it out on "your own side," you're basically full of it. Is at least my very unpopular opinion.
10
Give me a break...”The charges came to light late Thursday through an unrelated court filing in which prosecutors inadvertently mentioned them.”
A loyalist to the Mob Boss (trump) purposely mentioned it to warn Julian Assange that the heat was on and to destroy any paperwork and computer files and cover all tracks of anything that connects him with Roger Stone and trump and their collusion with receiving emails and other material from Russia to discredit Hillary Clinton and install trump as our illegitimate president/dictator.
I hear some people say that Assange is some great guy for releasing U.S. government secrets. I can agree that some things should be made public when they uncover illegal government operations, in the same manner I support Edward Snowden in releasing files of the illegal NSA spying on American citizens, but Assange is nothing but a criminal, a thief, a republican hack, and works with every despicable government to put the worst of the worst in power.
18
Not a mistake. Julian, time to come in.
5
"I love Wikileaks." - Donald J. Trump
"You are elected." - 49% of Americans
9
@Mr. Mark
... who lived in 60% of the states...
@DZ
Actually, I went and checked and my 49% was wrong. He got 46% of the vote, and only 27% of voting-eligible Americans. (And a much smaller percentage of all Americans.)
What does Jared think? He’s very smart you know.
8
Don't shoot the messenger simply because the message makes you feel foolish.
3
@Lawrence Chanin
To deliver a message is one thing, to collude with a foreign government to interfere with our elections is a crime.
@Amanda I doubt that's what Assange has done.
Assange is a criminal. He should be locked up in a real jail cell. Confidentiality is a human right.
6
Really?
The article says, "The charges came to light late Thursday through an unrelated court filing in which prosecutors inadvertently mentioned them."
There are no "accidents" in today's Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren's control of OUR U.S. Justice system.
Now they are all informed about more of the inner workings of investigations. This is how the mafia has always wormed their way out of prosecution.
Sorry, boys and girls. Not now. WE THE PEOPLE are on to you and WE will DEMAND that you all be removed from OUR governments and agencies at all levels before you can further destroy OUR United States of America.
Every single American with power who loves and values the democratic lifestyle WE have enjoyed since Teddy/FDR/Elanor Roosevelt must step up and stop this criminal behavior.
NOW is the time.
8
@njglea
Odd!
Siri what is the the concept known as Chilling effect?
2
Remember Trump saying "we love WikiLeaks" and encouraging Russia to hack his opponent?
That guy is now the President of the United States. Wow.
An honest argument over whether Assange is a journalist (questionable, due to his collaboration with a government) or whether WikiLeaks can be indicted is a legitimate one. But the bigger story is our country's leader publicly supporting the subversion of our elections.
28
Indicting someone for publishing truthful information is a 'dangerous path to take' especially so for a Justice Department headed by Matthew Whitaker which discredits every action Justice may take.
Trump trashes the press for releasing classified information which does not support his administration, but uses the information that Wikileaks has stolen for his election. Something stinks here and it sullies everything it touches and Trump goes blithely on. Is Trump deliberately corrupt or is it that he never learned right from wrong? Could it be both.
6
With due respect, you’ve missed the main point. Who cares who made the mechanical error? If you don’t understand that these cases are coordinated, it is unfortunate. Either way, your assumption is wrong and your impoliteness, unnecessary.
2
Assange is in a bit of a bind now. He's also outstayed his Equadorian welcome.
This skipping UK bail thing is really not going to go away. It's a crime here, albeit not a particularly serious one. Assange would normally expect a moderate fine or, at worst, a very short prison term - like, a week or two.
To deal with the bail jumping allegation Assange is going to have to appear in a London court. It's very likely that he will then be committed for trial to face a formal charge. Given that he's jumped bail once, he'll undoubtedly be incarcerated until his trial date. During which time...
FWIW, opinion in the UK about Assange is highly (and about equally) polarised. Half see him as a noble fighter for freedom and the other half as a danger to Western security and a mortal enemy of our closest ally. You wouldn't be surprised to know that the opinion split correlates strongly with our opinions about Brexit and about Mr Trump as well as Breitbart readership, Steve Bannon... yadda, yadda.
5
Being a citizen of this nation, I feel if we do not have free speech and press, then what kind of security do we have (*and for whom is it for).
6
Didn’t Trump once say that he loves this guy? Well, he won’t love him so much if Assange’s tactics land Junior and Jared in jail.
3
Julian Assange is a self serving coward. Many American journalists have gone to jail to protect the first amendment while the Australian Assange hides in embassies. Remember, he and he alone decided for the American people that Hillary Clinton should not be President of the United States and colluded with Russia and the Trump campaign to do what he could to make it so. What else will Julian Assange decide is best for the American people? This is not a champion of truth and transparency in government.
31
@BillFNYC
Actually, I had decided all by myself that Hillary Clinton should NEVER be the President of the United States when she was still pretending she didn't know if she was going to run. Way back before Podesta ever gave up his password in that phishing ploy. So how could it be Assange that is responsible for that?
It would be interesting to know what was in RNC and Republican emails if Assange's handlers had chosen to hack and release those.
9
In this case, presumably, Assange, like the Russians, could be charged with offenses related to foreign nationals' trying to influence U.S. elections. While the leaked emails from the Clinton campaign clearly are a matter of public interest, foreign nationals still are not permitted under U.S. law to substantially participate in U.S. elections. And, the emails Assange leaked were stolen. They were not freely given to him by the rightful owners.
18
If he is charged as part of a larger conspiracy, does that not lessen 1st amendment concerns?
1
If you knowingly assist foreign intelligence in a psyops campaign you shouldn't expect to be able to hide behind the First Amendment. National security interests will always beat your personal freedoms. Your rights end where the safety of others and the compromise of democracy begins.
242
@Vin Hill "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
I would heed caution when stating that our freedoms are second best to national security. Our freedoms are what truly separates us from other countries and we should be highly invested when those freedoms are being infringed under the guise of safety. Whether or not Assange is a patriot or criminal (based on individual view points), I would hope we don't compromise our countries virtues and principals in the process.
16
@Vin Hill - Yes but who gets the to decide the precise attributes involved in compromising democracy? Not even the highest court in the country is impartial any more. One person's revelation of truth can be another person's leaked state secret. Sometimes it is both at the same time. These days it can be difficult to recognize a patriotic hero.
14
@John Yes, the idea that an assumption of guilt on charges that one finds politically offensive as warranting the stripping of due process ought to give one pause.
8
Assange is actually small potatoes to Mueller.
The revelation of indictments is a peek of what’s coming, Conspiracy indictments of members of the Trump campaign.
And Trump professed his love for Wikileaks repeatedly on the trail during the dumps...what did Trump know and when did he know it?
12
Assange may well be a horrid person, and many may well hate his impact on the political discourse, but the US government is engaging in Star Chamber tactics to limit its accountability and no one will win if we allow it to succeed simply because of who it is targeting.
3
I've come to see Julian Assange as someone who became consumed by Hubris. Exposing corruption and massive government violations of citizen's rights is commendable, but interfering with political elections is despicable. Julian Assange must be held accountable for his Hubris. It's time for the Hands of Justice to reach out to Julian Assange, who betrayed his own original (noble) mission.
206
@ImmigrantCitizenDude
I'm just glad the United States has never, and would never, interfere in another countries elections or government. Right?
4
@ImmigrantCitizenDude Assange wasn't noble -- he just wanted you to think he was. He benefitted knowingly from the fruits of thefts -- a crime.
@ImmigrantCitizenDude. Hubris? Revealing corruption in a political party and by politicians is "hubris"? Good grief, if that's what you believe about a free press then that's sad.
6
“The government bringing criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information is a dangerous path for a democracy to take.”......Yes. But what if the charge is that Assange knowingly received stolen property from which he personally profited? It is not the case that the information that was obtained by Wikileaks was supplied by someone who legally had access to the information, but rather that the information was stolen by a third party that did not have legal access. Further, what if the third party who stole the information expected to receive compensation for the the theft; either directly from Wikileaks or indirectly for example by reduction in sanctions or other favorable considerations from the Trump Administration?
3
But the WAPO and the NYT profit from publishing information obtained from "unnamed" government sources who provide the information in violation of laws and regs all the time. This is a slippery slope.
2
"Mr. Humphries, are you free?"
"For the moment, yes."
3
" Are you being served ??". Eventually.
2
Mueller is waging a war that has serious implications for First Amendment protections.
4
With no context, I agree that we should preserve the press’ right to publish secret governmental info. But you have to looks at this in context, he did it on behalf of a foreign government to harm another. That is clearly a different thing.
All this faux-outrage on the right that Podesta deserved it is ridiculous. Apply the same logic to Chris Steele who you all believe should be locked up. You can’t have it both ways.
14
@Johnny two No it is not a completely different thing; you just are for press freedoms when it serves you, or is perceived to.
3
“...on behalf of a foreign government”
And what proof do you have of this? Because the corporate-media said so, I suppose.
The greatest risk for fascism isn’t leaders like Trump - the greatest risk factor is a lemming-like citizenry.
6
@Johnny two
Daniel Ellsberg was accused of "aiding the enemy" and was subject to prosecution under the 1917 Espionage Act, the same law that they seek to prosecute Assange with. Without the Pentagon Papers how many more lives, Vietnamese and American would have been lost?
7
Kudos for property pointing out that grand juries "hand up" indictments, not "hand down", which is commonly used.
3
Assange is neither a whistle blower nor a "journalis." He is Russian agents. Who do you think has been supporting him and his Wikileaks business while he's holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London? Not the Ecuadorians.
26
He should rot in that embassy. Sooner or later, horizontal or upright he will leave. I doubt we will get the truth from him.
4
Julian Assange is a vile individual who set himself up as a hero for making public government secrets and even private communications. It is true that much of what is declared secret by governments is really kept under wraps to avoid embarrassment and at times to not reveal instances of public deception. In those cases publishing the information is a public service. However, military secrets, diplomatic negotiations and private communications should be out of bounds. And what should definitely be out of bounds is using leaks as a weapon to influence elections in favor of one party over another. The timing of leaks concerning DNC and Podesta e-mails was deliberate and controlled by a foreign power (namely Russia), thereby making WikiLeaks an arm of Russian mischief. It is no coincidence that WikiLeaks has yet to leak anything embarrassing to the Russian government, but plenty that is detrimental to democratic governments.
43
@serban
Assange broke no laws, is not a U.S. citizen and did not conduct any of his activities on U.S. territory. The U.S. has no jurisdiction.
Furthermore, revealing accurate information about a political campaign is not a crime, no matter who does it.
Finally, it should be obvious, but war crimes are crimes. Not revealing them.
6
@Derek Flint Being an agent for Russia is not a crime, it does however make him an enemy of the US. Just as Russians indicted for interfering with our elections I fail to see what makes him any different. Criminal prosecution may not be possible in his case but as an enemy of the US he can be barred from coming here and any assets he may possess in the US can be confiscated.
2
@Derek Flint
Assange release classified US Government and Defense Dept documents to the public and then went on to release E-Mail’s that were stolen from Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Yes, it is high crimes !
He will be in Jail for the rest of his life in the United States........
1
He is no hero of freedom, transparency, liberal democracy and the west.
He is a useful tool of Russia and deserves everything he gets at the hands of the US.
At some point we in the west need to stop our “whataboutism” and self sabotage because we are not perfect in all aspects and recognize that while not perfect we are significantly better than regimes like Russia or China, or Saudi Arabia, etc.
Just ask what life was like behind the iron curtain and then ask those same people if life isn’t better now after the west and Europe poured billions of European tax payers money into their economies to build them up. Now the Viktor Orban types of the Europe are causing upset in the liberal world order not because they have a legitimate gripe but because they too are tools of Russia, planted to gain power in Europe on a long vision mission of Putin’s to undermine the west’s solidarity. Our president may be a tool too. Only time will tell.
Assange, tells himself he is someone he is not.
At some point we in liberal democracies need to take sides and fight for our survival because their are players out there who would love to see us crumble.
39
@Issy
You wouldn't be saying that if Assange had revealed information about Donald Trump's campaign, and you know it.
1
@Derek — which begs the question of why the hacked RNC and Trump Campaign information was not sought and/or published by our intrepid journalist Mr. Assange? Let’s see - Dems hacked, grid hacked, state election systems hacked ....
2
@Derek
If he leaked Republican emails that were hacked or stolen, I would say the same. Any attack on an American’s privacy is an attack on us all. Period.
And when wiki leaks released classified government documents I refused to look at them.
That’s what I know, so don’t presume you know me more than I know myself.
1
Julian Assange is a hero for exposing deep state and DNC malfeasance, hyperbolic Russian neo-cold war hysteria notwithstanding. The NYT by ginning up anti-Assange sentiment is only jeopardizing its own ability to exercise freedom of the press in an increasingly lock down era. Exposing military murder and DNC fraud may be inconvenient for some, but carry no more danger to US interests than release of the Pentagon Papers by the NYT.
19
@Jack...... But what if the foreign government who stole the information expected to receive some sort of compensation for the theft, and Assange was complicit? Surely you cannot believe that espionage carried out to damage another country or theft for some personal gain can be condoned because a key figure claims to be a journalist. And what is the definition of a journalist? After all, anyone who publishes anything on the internet or elsewhere can claim to be a journalist. Your argument is that everyone is protected as long as they publish or even claim they intend to publish.
4
@pwb What indictment? Assange has been charged under seal and an arrest warrant has been issued. That's all.
3
@Judy
What's the difference between a charge and an indictment? I imagined they were the same.
@nolongeradoc
My researches tell me that in the US, public prosecutors level indictments and the police, charges. So, they ARE pretty much the same thing. They're both just known as 'charges' over here.
Knowing this hasn't helped me understand your comment.
I think there is a case to be made that Wikileaks, in publishing DNC e mails, acted more like Gawker in the Hulk Hogan case than the Washington Post in the Pentagon Papers. The First Amendment may not save it. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out.
6
Prosecutors have leaked indictment vs Julian Assange. How convenient a poetic justice. If only the wiki leaks were fake news, I would have said book indict him. But the wiki leaks were the truth that none of those who were the subjects of the leaks denied the truth. In fact the top heads of the Democratic party rolled after wiki leaks revealed that the Democratic party knifed Bernie during the 2016 nomination process.
Wiki leaks did what Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and other top investigative journalists failed to do. Uncover the dark side of powerful political establishments. The least that should be done is free Assange. Maybe he is a loose cannon to politicians but he is cannon fodder to truth seekers.
17
@Girish Kotwal It woould be fine if Assange had leaked the DNC emails in the interest of democracy and transparency. Instead, it did it at the behest of a hostile foreign power that was trying to install a friendly ruler in our government. That's not journalism. That's espionage. He can't shield himself from prosecution when he literally makes himself an enemy of our country.
3
He, and the Russians, are the primary responsible for the election of the most mocked, ridiculed, despised and incompetent head of state we have ever had. I feel no pity for this bag of sh... I hope Mueller squeezes this trash until he oozes out all he knows and did to cause our country, and the world, such horrible and repugnant pain.
Indictment is the first step in the right direction prosecution and jail should follow.
19
@Nelson
Hillary Clinton lost to the most unqualified person ever to run for president because she was a terrible candidate. She was the second-most disliked major party nominee in history. She ran a terrible campaign based on dissing the left and cozying up to suburban Republicans. Bad move.
Meanwhile Obama was pushing for the TPP right up through the election, helping Trump win the rust belt votes he needed to win.
It is ludicrous to blame Russia for the outcome of the election.
5
@Nelson
Who is the trash here? You obedient citizens, always ready to prosecute a person who has always shed light on the truth, are the danger to our society.
The corrupt and powerful government will do anything to crush this truth teller, but nothing to make sure the truth is told. Pompeo the clown, will do anything he can to help prosecute Assange, even as he fails in every other responsibility that he has. Glad Sessions is gone, but we still are dealing with another venal CIA--SecState (after Hillary).
5
@Derek Flint
I thought she got more votes than any presidential candidate in history other than Obama...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
What would Americans think if the New York Times colluded with the Russians to taint a presidential election? Of course, we all know that the staff of the New York Times would never allow that to happen. Mr. Assange did just that. He colluded with Putin, and some as yet unknown number of Americans, and attacked our democracy. He weaponized the private email accounts of American citizens to undermine our democracy: the very bedrock on which our society is built. This isn't a battleship or a building. This is our democracy. Because of this malicious and willful act, which is the very definition of espionage, Mr. Assange deserves his dark fate.
38
Mr. Assange could be viewed as a modern day Nostradamus if he were a neutral actor. He is anything but.
He has an agenda that goes far beyond just publishing confidential information that he happened to come upon.
Instead he has shown himself to be simply a propaganda arm of the Russian government, eager to leak information based not on universal truth, but on facts convenient to his agenda.
If he were truly concerned about a world free of secrets, perhaps he might share the dirt Putin has on Trump. But I am not holding my breath.
33
@RichardS Daniel Ellsberg was a hero. Assange is a provacateur, whose primary agenda is disruption.
The prosecutors for the Eastern District of Virginia are guilty of gross malpractice. Does no one read the final draft of pleadings before they are filed? Someone should be held accountable for this ludicrous error. It was only a three-page indictment, for heavens's sake. Now, a secret prosecution in another case has been seriously compromised.
10
@Dwight.in.DC
What three-page indictment?
As the article points out in the seventh to last paragraph (contrary to the article's headline) its possible that there has been no indictment and that the filing in the unrelated case came from an unfiled draft.
Read the prior indictments of the Russians. Wikileaks is there. No surprise here — to anyone. Not Stone. Not Jr. Not even tantrum baby Trump himself.
1
This long planned persecution of Julian passage is a threat to all journalists everywhere. Obama argued that whistle blowers should simply go "through normal channels" and when they don't they are subject to prosecution.
But how do we operate in a so called free society when ALL the "normal channels" are blocked by a blanket national security classification?
Normal channels told us that US was attacked in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. It was a lie.
Normal channels said Iraq was linked to 9/11, they were acquiring yellow cake uranium, they had bio weapons, that the UN was fooled and couldn't find their hidden weapons. All normal channels and all lies.
Wikileaks acquired government documents the same way the NYTimes and WaPost squired the Pentagon Papers. And since then, they along with many other journalists have received documents from unnamed sources that were classified.
If Julian Assange can be prosecuted, so can every journalist who ever uses a government source. The over classification of our governments information was not done with the purpose to protect national security.
It was done to use national security as an excuse to hide the many things our government does, without our knowledge and without our permission as expressed through our elected representatives.
This is a prosecution of democracy itself. If we don't protest and protest vigorously, the creeping fascism that the Times warned about yesterday will be one step closer.
17
Except he did not just reveal politically embarrassing information classified under the guise of national security. What he revealed was appropriately classified, and the act truly endangered national security as well as specific individuals.
3
Sounds like Assange better plan on permanent residency in the Ecuadorian embassy. And Ecuador is stuck with the equivalent of the adult kid in the basement tapping away on his computer, eating their food, and making a mess.
16
There's nothing good about Julian Assange. I hope he goes to jail. He's one of the reasons we're in the mess we are today. He said he was out to get Hillary Clinton. And he did. Among many other things.
15
@Sarah
And Hillary was out to get him, with a drone if possible. She said it was a joke, but, really?
So Assange took self defense measures, and the world is a safer place.
2
@Sarah
He "got" Hillary Clinton by revealing accurate information about her campaign.
Clinton and others always had the option to not behave badly.
4
Dealing in stolen property does not make one a journalist.
18
Julian Assange publicly stated that his number one goal was to make sure Hillary Clinton lost the election upon the day he did the data dump of stolen e-mails from the DNC. It's amazing how he never has document dumps on Russia. My hope is that Ecuador puts him out on the curb for the British police to pick up.
23
@sonyalg
Maybe Hillary Clinton should have behaved better so there would have been no damaging emails or not suggested Assange be assassinated by a drone.
Hillary is the sole author of her defeat.
2
@sonyalg
Well she did propose killing him. Just kidding!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strike/
2
It sounds as if they need a proofreader in the Justice Department.
I would expect that the Ecuadorean Embassy in London is fed up enough with Assange's behavior that they are getting ready to throw him out. I also wonder if the Norwegians don't have first dibs on him for prosecution for the rape he committed.
The Snowden papers and Mannings disclosures helped the rest of us understand just how bad the calls have been within the State Department and the Pentagon. I know there have been many people who consider both of these people traitors, but frankly if our Government does not give us transparency and more importantly consistently lies to us, then this is what happens. Think Pentagon Papers. I believe that both Snowden and Manning did our citizens a great service. Assange and Wiki-leks was the vehicle they chose to do this.
That said, if it can be proven that Assange was acting as a Russian agent whose goal was to interfere in our election, he should be charged and tried. While Assange is not an American citizen who cannot be tried for Treason, he can be charged for being a Foreign agent who interfered with our Democratic Election system.
I hope the inadvertent filing does not interrupt the Mueller Investigation.
8
@Jean
Assange did not interfere in the election any more than oil companies, big pharma, AIPAC, the NRA and the Chamber of Commerce—among others—do in every election.
Nor were the emails more meaningful than Hillary's VP pick, her decision to diss progressives in favor of suburban Republicans, her superpredators comment, her Goldman-Sachs speeches, her "public positions and private positions" comment,her failure to campaign in Wisconsin, her laziness on the campaign trail compared to Trump, her failure to articulate an economic message in the closing days of the campaign in favor of 90% negative ads about Trump, or her flip-flops on TPP, to name a few.
Nor were the emails more significant in the rust belt, where she ultimately lost the presidency, than Obama's stupid, arrogant push for the TPP, another job-killing trade deal, right up until the election.
3
Journalism is one thing. Conspiracy to interfere with an election is another. I'm not sure where exactly law draws the line. However, there's reason to suspect Assange was perfectly aware of his sources and their motivations. In a week splashed with headlines featuring Facebook's knowledge of Russian interference, imagining Assange as a criminal suspect is not very hard.
The shocking part is Assange hasn't already been indicted under US law in some way before now. Not for the Manning episode. That was not a conspiracy to disrupt an election. Obama was correct to treat the episode as a rouge event. The DNC emails though? Why hasn't the Trump administration pursued punitive action against Assange?
The question is rhetorical. We all know why.
There really isn't enough information here to draw conclusions though. The entire article seems rushed to print. Proper journalism would have researched the many questions raised more thoroughly. This writing just leaves the reader more confused than when they started.
8
@Andy
I suppose the story here is not Assange's activity, but the inadvertent disclosure of the govt's case.
While I am not sure where I stand on his guilt, it is deplorable that this filing was allowed to happen; is this malpractice or leaking about the leaker?
2
"To succeed in other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do."
— Mark Twain (30 November 1835 – 21 April 1910)
"Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed."
— I.F. Stone (24 December 1907 – 18 June 1989)
4
Since we don't know what evidence they have on Assange, it's really impossible to say whether indicting him is an assault on the First Amendment. If he knowingly trafficked in stolen information, that is a crime. If he assisted in the hack, that's a crime. And please... stop calling him a journalist. At best, he's a whistle blower.
18
@Patty Was the release of the Pentagon Papers a crime because it was leaked? The government is the people. In an open society transparency is the foundation of democracy. Without it freedom is grossly curtailed. Is that the kind of society you want to live in?
4
@Dr Jay Seitz
Like I said, we don't know what evidence Mueller's team has on Assange. If he qualifies under whistle blower protections, that's one thing. If he was actively assisting a hostile foreign government to attack us and meddle in our elections, that's a different thing.
And Jay, no country on the planet has a fully transparent government. Do I want to know every single thing that's going on? Probably yes. Do I think I have a right to know everything my government is doing? No. My son is in the Navy, and there are things he is involved in that he's not allowed to talk about. This isn't because the Navy likes to keep secrets or that they're doing anything nefarious. It's to keep the ship and his shipmates safe and by extension, keep us safe.
As for the kind of society I want to live in, I want a world with no war, no pollution, no violence, and no poverty; where every person is equal and all strive to better humanity as a whole. In other words, I want to live in a Star Trek world.
Assange is a true hero for all who dislike secret government and totalitarianism. Wikileaks did not hack emails or documents, they simply published the emails and documents given to them by those who did. New York Times also published the Bradley Manning documents and the Podesta email leaks. Podesta's email password was "password", which he gave it away to someone phishing. Obama pardoned Manning who stole the documents from the government, now the government wants to shoot the messenger? Indict and prosecute the press from revealing what the government does not want known? This precedent should be useful for our current POTUS to go after the NYT.
14
@carrucio....And maybe if Assange reveals who gave him the stolen material he will be pardoned too.
1
The Assange manifesto essentially states that if those in power know they are ultimately going to get hacked and their misdeeds revealed then they will stop acting like criminals. Did the DNC really think they were unhackable? Only their arrogance would let them think that. Now look who we have for a president.
9
The notion that the uncovering and publication of the truth is unlawful, has implications that I think most people are not considering due to the nature of this particular case.
So what if he's not a journalist? The NY Times are journalists and they publish tons of work, based on leaks.
A future Trumpian, if not a present one, would use a ruling against Mr. Assange to justify any number of tactics to shut down the free press, as we have come to know it.
11
@Billy The release of the Pentagon Papers that changed the direction of a horrible and outrageous war was leaked by a military analyst. Anybody can be a "journalist" and titles are not the issue, it's function.
7
@Billy A free press is essential in a democracy so the people are kept fully informed of what their government is up to. Nevertheless, there is information that should not be made public until after it can cause harm, such as military tactics in ongoing operations, delicate diplomatic discussions, or any that can result in great harm to operatives abroad. And clearly private personal information must be out of bounds, privacy should trump a free press. Most reputable news media respects those bounds, not so WikiLeaks.
3
@Billy
What is a journalist? Some one who seeks the truth and puts pen to paper (metaphorically speaking of course). It's as simple as that. So you could say that Assange, in his own way, is a journalist and a very good one at that.
2
I understand respect the First Amendment issues at stake here. But a couple of questions: Can Assange as an individual be indicted for aiding in a concerted effort by members of the Russian government to sway US elections? If the government leaves Wikileaks as an organization alone and focuses on Assange as a courier (is he really a reporter?), is the problem the same as when the Times publishes information embarrassing to the Trump administration (thinking of the recent article about the North Korean missile sites Trump has suggested don't exist). The Russia investigation is about illegal activity-a foreign government attempting to subvert Federal elections. If Assange helped with that, well...
3
Such an indictment, if it actually plays out with Assange being extradited to the US for prosecution, will almost certainly be a means to get testimony and evidence from the one person who probably knows more about what happened with the Russians and the 2016 election than anyone else. JA should be thinking about what kind of deal he can make (immunity from prosecution, plea bargain to a lesser crime, etc.) to hand over what he knows.
3
That's great. The U.S. is indicting one of the few people who truly believe in a free press and the free flow of government information and actually acts upon it.
So now the U.S., the self-declared bastion of freedom, is indicting him. Tragic, but sadly typical of our modern times.
Meanwhile, Zurkerberg and Sandberg, the world's biggest thieves of personal data, go free.
7
I'm quite happy for him to stay in that embassy for the next 50 years.
4
According to the article, “The court filing was made in error,” said Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia. “That was not the intended name for this filing.” Really? I don’t believe that at all. That was deliberately done and the so-called professor who found it was a Left-wing stooge appointed by the opposition to find it. By publishing the emails from the DNC, Podesta, and others, the American people learned the truth about what the Democrats were up to. In that sense, Julian Assange is a warrior for truth, just as the traitor Edward Snowden is a hero for the Left. The difference between Assange and Snowden is that Assange did not hold a security clearance and had not agreed by signature to not disclose government information. Besides, the emails he published were public information, not classified government secrets. As for investigating the disclosure of government secrets, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her associates at the State Department must be investigated and summarily thrown in prison. Thank you.
6
@Southern Boy How's the weather in Moscow?
6
@Southern Boy
“That was deliberately done and the so-called professor who found it was a Left-wing stooge appointed by the opposition to find it.”
Huh?!
Your post doesn't make a lot of sense...
This was telling:
“ As for investigating the disclosure of government secrets, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her associates at the State Department must be investigated and summarily thrown in prison. ”
“Lock her up”, eh?!
How childish, and misogynist. You have no evidence she ever did what you claim. Yet, you ignore the FACT that we know that so-called president Trump passed along top secret information to the Russians in the Oval Office!
It's also become clear that he and his minions colluded, conspired, and coordinated with the Russians to “win” the election.
7
@Southern Boy. The current POTUS should be 'thrown in prison' for - among many possible reasons- the continued use of an unsecured phone thereby jeopardizing national security, for throwing protocol to the wind by meeting alone with Vladimir Putin, for his constant barrage of blatant lies... The list continues ad infinitum.
4
Trump has a secret meeting abroad with Putin, what has been said in that meeting? If the translator leaks what has been said, press publishes immediately. There shouldn’t be such a secret meeting in the first place. Similarly, there shouldn’t be a secret indictment, therefore press should publish it immediately once it is leaked. Democracy dies in darkness-Washington post.
3
@Kodali World leaders should always have the opportunity to meet and discuss affairs of national security without giving the press a heads up, especially in tough diplomatic times when defusing the situation can be beneficial to both countries and aforementioned press is doing everything it can to exacerbate the case. Don't act like this is news to you.
1
So the Times' readership wants to "lock him up" ... and, presumably, the editors and reporters at every major newspaper in the world, who were under no obligation to publish all the information our betters didn't want us to see....
Some people evidently don't want to live in a free society. Or, at least a society which can reveal how the Democratic party operates.
It's too late to say, "be careful what you wish for" because, in the person of Trump, you already got it. Of course, Hillary also believes in the divine rights of the privileged. but the packaging was evidently more acceptable to the readership here.
9
@jrd
"Some people evidently don't want to live in a free society".
Indeed, first among them the hero of the Republicans,Julian Assange, indicted for rape in Sweden and having been holed up for years in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange himself has chosen to be "locked up" in better quarters than a slammer and wearing his own cloth.
2
Two words: Pentagon Papers.
6
Tell us, Mr. Assange, where are the treasure troves of data from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea? Surely there must be secrets in Africa you could reveal. How about Saudi Arabia? You were sure scooped by Turkey on that one.
The truth is Wikileaks has always been about Julian, not the truth. He has never lifted a finger to actively pursue anything - just waiting for the next patsy to deliver fame and notoriety to his doorstep, no questions asked.
10
The issue with Wikileaks and Assange comes down to intent. Journalism as practiced by the NYT et:al should be about transparency, accountability, accuracy, the public’s right to know and historical documentation. Whatever Wikileaks once was they aided and abetted the Russians and the Trump campaigns manipulation of the 2016 election. It was timed for maximum effect and designed to undermine the Clinton campaign as a political act. It was anything but journalism and should be treated that way.
9
Just because something is true doesn't mean it's ethical or legal to be published. Hacking into someone's computer and publishing private information regardless if it's true is illegal and wrong. Assange isn't a journalist or a hero. He's a conspiratorial hacker and his comeuppance is on the horizon.
5
I'm all for transparency but don't we have a right to our own documents, even in the digital age? That doesn't mean we don't understand our documents are at risk. They clearly are. That doesn't create a right to theft and collusion with a foreign government to take down our democratic institutions.
Our President and Fox News are obsessed with an invasion from South of our border but they welcomed an invasion of our government and personal documents by a foreign government and hacking operation to upend our democracy.
8
The only thing that transcends political divisions in this country is the rank hypocrisy that both sides are adept at.
Since Wikileaks may have helped Trump win the election, and was almost certainly helped by the Russian intelligence, now Assange is a thief who should be prosecuted. Fair point.
Then what was Chelsey Manning's absolutely mindless theft of classified files which could endanger lives of U.S service men and women in field, compromise U.S national interests, and almost certainly helped Russian and Chinese intelligence? Back then Wikileaks was a hero and Manning, who can be reasonably described as a traitor who violated her oath, her professional contract she voluntarily signed, is a celebrated champion for truth?
Once you reduce issues like freedom of speech, or the freedom of the press to partisan cudgels you're on a very slippery slope of losing a shared definition of truth and facts.
74
@A. Roy
Exactly. Thank you for writing this and to the editors for selecting it as a standout comment.
The hundreds of thousands of Department of State cables that Manning mindlessly copied and pasted from file folders and then released through Assange are directly tied to the self-immolation in Tunisia that helped kick off the "arab spring" which eventually gave us the nightmare of the conflict in Syria.
6
@A. Roy I think Manning's absolution may be summed up in the word "her."
1
@A. Roy
I totally disagree with your fatuous version of events regarding Manning.What you and many others fail to reckon with is the TOTAL FAILURE and RECKLESSNESS of the military in giving TOP SECRET CLEARANCE to an immature young man with severe emotional problems. IF you troubled yourself to follow the reporting regarding Manning you would know that there were numerous occasions where clearly, not marginally, unstable personal conduct was observed and noted.
What you might more seriously question is why the military failed at so many levels to identify Manning's demonstrated instability and the obvious risks involved in assigning such a person a TOP SECRET clearance.. The really reckless, questionable, and criminal behavior was not on the part of Manning but of the military and its wanton failure to manage security.
5
He's not a US citizen and no laws were broken IN the US as he did whatever he did in the UK: he didn't steal the documents, he just published them...so no charges.
6
@Paul Torcello
Citizen of not, laws were broken by Putin's hackers. Assange knew that.
And he did it not in the UK per se because the Embassy he is holed up in for years is the sovereign ground of Ecuador.
2
@Paul Torcello
As a foreign national he can't be indicted for treason but he can be for espionage.
Assange meets the US/UK agreed criteria for deportation to the USA. He's been legally indicted (charged), espionage is a crime in both jurisdictions and there are no clear and overwhelming reasons for him to face trial in London.
You can't be extradited simply for the purpose of investigation and Assange hasn't been indicted for, say, lying to a Federal official - which isn't a crime in the UK - so, no get-out there.
The US had better soften the 'marked for injection' rhetoric though. Unless there is absolute reassurance that Assange will NOT face the death penalty, it's very unlikely that the UK government will agree to his extradition. We don't approve of that sort of thing here, see?
2
@Paul Torcello.."he didn't steal the documents'....But did he knowingly receive stolen private property and did he personally benefit from same?
2
Nothing Assange disclosed was untrue. It was embarrassing to people in power. They want to punish him for that. They will use any thing and any process to do that. That is wrong. I agree with Mr. Assange’s lawyer on this one.
8
@Justice Holmes - Wrong. We don't know that none of it was untrue, because the Ruskies are infamous for doctoring documents that they've stolen before releasing them to mislead those who are stupid enough to take what they say as the truth at face value. Wake up. JA is a criminal deeply involved the the tRump Crime Family conspiracy to defame and defraud the american people and our electoral system, and he deserves to rot in prison.
2
@WhatConditionMyConditionIsIn
The Democrats admitted that the emails belonged to them.
@WhatConditionMyConditionIsIn The info is probably true. Nobody from the DNC denied any of it. The reason Assange needs to go down is because he's an operative of Russia foreign intelligence and helped them interfere with our elections. Were it not for his willful cooperation with their agenda to mess up our government leaking the information would've been fine.
Leave this man alone! If anyone has the sense of history to remember Daniel Ellsberg and the hate and vitriol cast at him for revealing the Pentagon Papers they should recognize a kindred spirit, and the fact the Ellsberg is now treated as a hero. Wake up America!
4
The person who commits a burglary is a criminal. The first amendment only comes into play for the person who published the materials of the break in.
1
This is common knowledge anyway. That's why Assange fled to the embassy. I don't care if his actions were altruistic (they weren't). He probably caused alot of innocent people much pain in their lives. Some may have even been killed because of it.
6
Was this really an accident or an intentional leak to give a major Trump campaign ally ample warning?
5
Staggering incompetence by the Justice Department.
2
Someone at that law firm is not getting a bonus this year...
1
I am not surprised and shed no tears for him. Assange set himself up for this, and should expect it as a necessary consequence of his choices. As long as he can remain at that Embassy, this just adds to his narrative of being an international martyr and burnishes his self image of being a champion for truth. And if Ecuador turns him out, he will go to Russia next.
I draw the line at the revelation of active military technology. Policy papers exposing corporate malfeasance and government hypocrisy or violations of international law - cool. The DNC emails - ok. Letting the world know certain tech exists - eeesh, but journalists would do it. But revealing our actual cyber warfare technology? No. We’ve spent billions on that to protect ourselves and our allies, and now it is going to be a gift to tech-savvy cranks, terrorists and hostile governments. He will endanger our military personnel, global innocents, and dissidents in authoritarian regimes. That is not in line with “saving the world through transparency,” it is malicious anarchy, and it isn’t the small scale “anarchist’s cookbook” kind, it’s “end of democratic societies at the hands of totalitarians” kind.
141
@ann
By that definition the pentagon papers or the Downing Street memo should have been silenced as we marched disastrously toward Vietnam and iraq?
12
@ann Yes, he knew that by publishing all that material he would be in the US' crosshairs, and he did it anyway because he believes in what he's doing. That's brave.
3
@ann I think you have that backwards. Yes, it is anarchy and it may be malicious, but that by itself does not end a democracy unless the citizens of that democracy are willingly oblivious to the freedoms they give up. You say the line is between DNC emails and publishing "cyber warfare tech". It turns out that "cyber warfare tech" is being used by the US on its own citizens without oversight, snooping on all conversations in the US regardless of whether there was an international component or not. Is this then OK? If Assange had not published those leaks you would have been OK with that? So who, then, is the most danger to a democracy?
6
What I don't understand is how the indictment became public. Was it leaked intentionally to warn Assange so he could escape and not testify against someone or was the leak gross incompetence. The timing of the "mistake" seems strange now that the DOJ is headed by a new (acting) AG .
98
@pwb -- as far as "how the [possible] indictment [of Assange] became public," it's an easy to make kind of mistake that is probably made dozens of times or more in law offices around the country. Using a document from one file to draft a similar document for another file is extremely commonplace. Toss in hasty proofreading (or over-reliance on spell check), and there you are.
6
@pwb
There's another interesting aspect to this 'sealed indictment' thing.
In the UK, extradition requests are assessed by the courts not by the government. These are senior courts and the proceedings are public - and publicly reported. It will be necessary for the details of indictment to be made public, too.
Now, we do have in the UK,'secret' courts. They use disturbing processes - the accused is not allowed to see the evidence against him/her, (S)he's not allowed his own lawyers, having to rely instead on a public interest advocate appointed by the government and the proceedings and the outcome are never made public, except for the sentencing. If a defendant had suffered injustice - torture, for example (and yes, Britain's security services have been complicit in this), these facts would be kept secret. Nobody's particularly happy about these courts (do you wonder why?) and consequently, they are used only when there is an overwhelming national security interest.
There would be a huge outcry if Assange were extradited on the basis of a sealed indictment declared in one of these secret courts. An outcry which Mrs May will certainly look to avoid. The charges against Assange will have to be made public.
6
@pwb That was my exact first thought when I read this headline. The timing is a bit too suspect.
Assange is no angel, but neither has he committed murder. Among the 'classified' secrets he revealed was the July 2007 footage of US aircrew shooting on and killing 12 civilians in Iraq, while falsely claiming they were being fired upon and having a good laugh about it all. Of course such atrocities committed by US service personal are extremely rare, but they happen and should be punished.
But the killers in this case havn't been punished, no Justice Dept. sealed indictments are hanging over their heads - unlike, ironically is the case for Assange.
If your moral compass doesn't give you any problems with that state of affairs then, well, you don't have one.
101
@Stewart
I was going to explore work with injured Vets and took a trip up to the Maine DVA center. But once I saw the video and heard the helicopter pilots communication about the incident, I was outraged and couldn't work there or with Vets. They were murdering people, children in one vehicle that arrived to help the wounded, and having a good old time.
And no, I do not think it was "extremely rare" or an isolated incident. I think it was pretty much SOP.
Time to stop the wars that are killing innocents, including our soldiers and corrupting our troops. It has gone on far too long.
12
@Stewart I think many people agree that many pieces of information, such as the one you point to (clearly obtained illegally) are a valuable check for our government. I think the objections to Assange focus on the one-sided turn his revelations took after Holder set his sights on him. Assange stopped being the unbiased fountain of transparency and turned into a king-maker.
2
I would add also that if he (Assange) was trying to expose to the American populace, 80% which are dunces, myself included, that Hillary was/is one in the same a corporate shill, is that really a crime?
Truth=Ipso facto "Alternative Facts" 2018
4
Mike Pompeo, called it a “hostile intelligence service” that was aided by Russia and accused Mr. Assange of making “common cause with dictators.”
It's really hypocritical for Mr. Pompeo to castigate and demonize Julian Assange for making "common cause with dictators" and then have no problem working for somebody else who not only "makes common cause with dictators" but effusively praises them and seeks to imitate their behavior.
The United States, for decades has had no problem making common cause with dictators while also installing quite a few themselves.
This is the problem public language. Our public language has become a language of deception that masquerades as openness, a language that, like an actor, plays a role to achieve an effect on an audience and once that affect has been achieved, leaves the stage, removes his costume and makeup and then goes on with its real business.
9
@Max "Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate"
1
@Max
Nobody really believes them anymore, anyway.
If this is the way Trump treats his supporters, I'm glad I'm not on his enemies list.
The article is more speculation than substance.
12
The six years inside the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London have taken a toll on Julian Assange’s physical and mental health. Due to his narcissistic paranoia and revolutionary arrogance, he has made himself a nuisance among the embassy staff. Recently he was told to behave himself and not to sow discord online, clean his bathroom, feed his cat and pay for his food, laundry etc. Visitors have to be approved three days in advance.
The news that criminal charges have apparently been filed against him confirms his fear that he’s a wanted man by US law enforcement agencies. The British government will be the first to arrest him for breaching his bail condition by fleeing to the embassy in 2012.
Unlike his predecessor, Rafael Correa, the new Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno said he never approved of Assange’s activities and described him as a “stone in our shoe.”
Even if it is not clear what charges Assange would face, he could still be extradited to the US for questioning. Perhaps prosecutors would come up with charges against him in the course of an investigation. It can’t be difficult to nail him.
12
@J. von Hettlingen
You state that the news the justice department were filing charges would confirm to Assange that he is wanted by them.
He's hiding in the Ecuadorian's embassy.
Why would he hide there if he didn't know
1
@J. von Hettlingen
Well, Lenin Moreno was bribed, with weapons and money, by the USG, so I cannot take anything he has said with any seriousness. The Pres. of Equador is a cheap sell out, and it will be his legacy.
1
I think increasing transparency is a noble goal. However, if that is one's goal, then it is incumbent on that individual or organization to stay neutral. In the case of Mr. Assange and his WikiLeaks site, it appears sides have been chosen and that flies in the face of his defense that he is just a proponent for greater transparency. Or should we start thinking of organizations like the KGB and CIA as advocates for greater transparency?
21
@ChrisH what does he need a defense for? I wasn’t aware that embarassing the powerful was a crime!
3
@ChrisH Oh man, you nailed it. Do we believe that Putin and his oligarchs have no secrets that could be exfiltrated and exposed, and that the Russian people shouldn't know?
The fact that Assange goes after the USA a lot, well, we're the arrogantly "moral" country that likes to tell everyone else how they should behave, so fine. But, no time to put Russia on blast, as the oligarchs pauper their own people to line their pockets, and do more and worse than everything the US might legitimately be accused of, home and abroad? Russia's government is as opaque as they come.
You can't set yourself up to be the moral arbiter of transparency righteousness and focus 90%+ of your attention on one target. That shows you're just trying to settle a grudge, and thus everything you do towards that end is suspect.
3
@ChrisH
Exactly, can you imagine if emails from the Trump campaign were equally exposed. It would have been Hillary by a landslide, not just 3 million votes. If Trump campaign's public statements and pronouncements were mind-numbing imagine the discussions that no one was supposed to see. Assange, among other things, is not an honest broker and is more narcissistically concerned about his rogue image.
2
Isn't one difference between being a journalist and Assange that a document dump is not journalism? The publication of confidential documents by the Times or Post is always accompanied by an article or series that provides context, including human sources supporting, challenging, and discussing findings. Journalists don't publish documents just on anarchist impulse to show that they can. They publish documents because they're evidence for the story that has emerged from their multifaceted reporting over time.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are linked in the First Amendment for a reason. "Press" is a medium that facilitates speech. Wikileaks doesn't exercise a right of speech as such; they just publish stolen documents. If a literary scholar published a novel verbatim and just said "there you go," that wouldn't be an exercise of free speech; if the scholar publishes a book in which she quotes passages of the novel in support of an interpretation, or if she published an intensely annotated version of the novel, she is exercising critical speech. (However, the issue of copyright in the latter case points to conflicts between intellectual property rights and the First Amendment that do hamper free speech; the Solomonic resolution would be to divide royalties proportionally to the text instead of forbidding publication.)
Wikileaks does nothing to render the documents as "speech." It's mere theft of speech. Journalism has a transformative purpose.
83
@C Wolfe
What you raise is a valid point regarding the difference between professional journalism and just publishing data and documents, but who gets to decide whether something meets the criterion of "transformative purpose"? What would happen if tomorrow another prosecutor decides that a NYT investigation isn't "transformative" enough? Or would we have to reduce this to professional credentials? If so, who issues that and what would happen to online blogs and youtube channels that discuss current affairs?
Isn't it better to err on the side of transparency instead of opening that Pandora's box?
9
@C Wolfe-The First Amendment uses the phrase, "freedom of speech, OR of the press," not "freedom of speech, AND of the press." Speech and the press are not linked. No court has ever ruled that there must be narrative explaining published information in order for speech to be protected.
9
@C Wolfe
""Press" is a medium that facilitates speech."
I think it’s clear that the Wikileaks posts facilitated plenty of speech and it seems patronizing to assert that it needed an accompanying “interpretation” to be considered an “exercise of free speech”. The content of the posts hardly needed interpreting unless of course one wanted to create an opposing narrative. Indeed, some of us find it refreshing to be presented simply with facts sans the interpretation, which is nothing more than opinion at its best and propaganda at its worst.
8
Assange was a conduit for Russia to help destabilize the United States. Indict away.
75
All Assange did was tell a story. In fact,,, he did not tell the story or write the narrative. He published what Washington had said and written. He did not steal the information, he was merely the paper for the words to be written on.
He is entitled to free speech and freedom of the press.
Those that pursue or indict him are fomenting treason. The US Constitution is clear. Freedom of the press is essential to us all.
46
@Deanalfred
Sorry, Dean. Assange DID steal the information; had he not done so, he would not be facing Criminal Charges.
2
@Deanalfred
So when the New Democratic Congress demands Trump’s taxes they just want freedom too, right?
Where is the line between right to privacy and the people’s right to know? Republicans don’t want transparency or freedom of information except when it hurts the other side. No hypocrisy going on here....
4
@Deanalfred The constitution is very clear.
"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"
In the digital age hacking into ones personal or a Government or businesses documents is a search and seizure.
2
Assange should be indicted because he helped Trump become president. That should be an indictable crime by itself.
47
@jwljpm
Although I didn't vote for Trump, or agree with him much, your statement shows the contempt that you have for ™Our Democracy, you know, the one that Democrats like to crow about, as they subvert it.
A pox on both their houses. I will forever vote third party until the corruption of both parties is broken.
1
I am going off the grid after reading this.
6
I think Mr Mueller should go to Russia and bring back the 12 individuals he charged with crimes so they can stand trial in the US.
If he doesn't come back.....well, that's the way things go.....
4
the American public would rather send trump and family with all his cabinet picks to russia to you know "drain the swamp". thats of course after seizing all his ill gotten gains.
3
No. There are no "do-over's" in botched indictments. Nice work!
1
It's got nothing to do with infringement of a free press. The hacked emails are STOELN PROPERTY. He was brokering fruits of a crime. Duh.
40
@Mike7. I think you miss the mark here. Look to the USSC decision regarding the NYT's and Washington Post's publication of the Pentagon Papers. See New York Times Co. vs. the United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).
3
Way to miss the nuances of the situation. The precedence of this case could be problematic for real press outfits as discussed in the article. Don’t let the infuriating details of this single incident cloud the view of what’s important (free press) in the long run.
I hope they find a very legal narrow ground on which to punish Assange without trampling on the 1st amendment.
Let me get this straight …….
The US government is going after Julian Assange for WikiLeaks disclosures that likely swayed our election.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is making a public spectacle of himself in his gushy, embarrassing efforts to further ingratiate himself to Putin, the man behind the Russian interference that put him into office.
Is it just me, or is someone afraid of going after the big fish?
44
@KJ
One catches the little fish to use them as bait to catch the big fish.
1
@KJ
It is not against the law to make disclosures that sway U.S. elections.
6
@KJ: if you truly believe that Wikileaks’ disclosures and Russian interference threw the election to Trump on their own, then I have a bridge to sell you. They were two tangential pieces, little more. Given the quality and temperaments of the “candidates” and their similar dis - likability, Americans had precious little to choose from, and both of poor quality.
10
Mike Pompeo accused Mr. Assange of making "common cause with dictators". It will be to long to name all the dictators with whom the USA made "common cause" through their history, from Porfirio Diaz (Mexico) to the Saudis. Pompeo should be back to his history books.
Also this prosecution against Julian Assange was started under the Obama Administration which administration is the one which brought the most case in court against leakers and journalists.
17
You can assess how secure our Brave New World is by looking at the number of times you get a new credit card (without asking for it) and how often your taxes and credit report and medical history are hacked. What is interesting is that the government and major corporations (e.g., SONY) despite vast resources really fare as poorly or worse than the average schlep in these kinds of breaches.
5
If there was any crime here, it was committed outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
12
@Peter Piper
So, where should the crime be tried?
Most countries operate 'catch all' laws in order to gain jurisdiction over events taking place outside their borders - the UK has a pile relating to peripatetic pedophiles, for example. For the US it's the old favorites of mail and wire fraud - which can be applied if so much as a single transaction or foreigner's email passes through an internet server somewhere in America.
It's really not difficult.
@nolongeradoc So you're fine with laws that make it a crime if an email passes through a server in the US? yet if a US citizen is murdered abroad, the government throws up it's hands and does nothing.
Not a fan of Mr. Assange, but indicting him for doing what we expect and accept from the NYT, WAPO, etc., sets a bad and dangerous precedent. "Lawyers unbound" is almost always bad news, and doubly so when they are government lawyers with prosecutorial power.
30
I’m no fan of Assange, but everyone is assuming that this document with Assange’s name in it was actually filed with a court. There’s a huge leap between concluding that someone cribbed from a draft document saved in internal files and, based on that conclusion alone, presupposing that that same cribbed draft document was ever filed in a court.
12
“Mike Pompeo, called it a ‘hostile intelligence service’ that was aided by Russia and accused Mr. Assange of making ‘common cause with dictators.’”
I’m confused. Is Mike Pompeo expressing admiration, or antipathy? Seems like it could be either one, given the whole Russia “ruse.”
10
The '16 elections were so crazy (spelled TRUMP). Our future president openly encouraged foreign countries & thieves to steal private information & communications from the Clinton campaign. It seemed in keeping with his loony tunes behavior that went unquestioned by many at the time. Just another day in crazy town.
Our country is based on a rule of law - and more and more of those laws may be catching up to individuals around our outlandish Mr. Trump. I think Donald is getting more & more nervous that Mueller & Co. are old school - Elliott Ness Types and the next pounding on the door may be at the White House - or one of Trump's many golf courses.
Tee it up!
24
This behavior (secret indictments) by the so-called Justice Department is exactly why we need Wikileaks.
51
Huh. They should talk to their "boss" just to get some clarification...
From BusinessInsider: Here are a few times Trump mentioned WikiLeaks during his campaign, according to widely available video footage of Trump's campaign-trail appearances:
October 10, 2016 in Wilkes-Barre, PA: "This just came out," Trump said. "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks."
October 12, 2016 in Ocala, FL: "This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable," Trump said. "It tells you the inner heart, you gotta read it."
October 13, 2016 in Cincinnati, OH: "It's been amazing what's coming out on WikiLeaks."
October 31, 2016 in Warren, MI: "Another one came in today," Trump said. "This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove."
November 4, 2016 in Wilmington, OH: "Getting off the plane, they were just announcing new WikiLeaks, and I wanted to stay there, but I didn't want to keep you waiting," said Trump. "Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks."
43
@JP
God, I never imagined Trump and I could be on the same wave length.
1
What are the possibilities that Assange ends up in little pieces like Khashoggi ? Food for thought. G.T.M. Linden, Virginia
3
@Geoffrey Tyms
Not very likely Lindy.
1
@Geoffrey Tyms
Well, he's already in an Embassy...
2
Perhaps Mr. Assange merely colluded with the Russians on the election mis-information campaign.
Perhaps Mr. Assange is not a journalist but an operative.
17
@Louis J
WikiLeaks didn't publish any misinformation. It revealed dirty dealing inside the Democratic National Committee. While purporting to treating its presidential candidates equally, it was secretly stacking the deck against Bernie Sanders in his bid for the Democratic nomination. Its whistle-blowing expose forced the DNC chairwoman to resign in disgrace.
39
@William Case which is exactly why the whole "Russia Conspiracy" started - a smokescreen to cover the shenanigans between the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
The mainstream media swallowed it hook, line and sinker even as they smelled the familiar stink of Clinton corruption.
2
It seems to be completely lost on Berni-ites that Bernie was not and is not a democrat. He is an independent. Why oh why shouldn’t the dnc favor its candidate over a candidate who is not even a democrat. That’s just crazy.
1
Assange was hailed as a hero by the left for revealing NSA secrets. They were recounted in the WaPo and the Guardian. Glenn Greenwald received a Pulitizer for his part in publishing those secrets. The right went ballistic.
Then it was the right's turn. They were ecstatic when Assange got into HRC's and Podesta's emails. Trump asked them publicly to release HRC's "missing" emails. The next day Assange obliged.
Good times.
25
@BB Fernandez He was hailed as a hero by the left at one point you’re right. But I think you’re thinking of Edward Snowden and not Julian Assange in your example.
14
@BB Fernandez
If he ended pissing off both left and right, that must mean he did something good. For the country.
8
@BB Fernandez - The accuracy of your comment depends on how one defines your nebulous term “the left.” Obama and Hillary were both adamantly anti-Assange, which of course is why he was so eager to help Trump and the Russians against Hillary.
11
"In 2016, a Times examination found that WikiLeaks’s document releases often benefited Russia, at the expense of the West."
Who benefited ? Most of all the American public who finally learned how duplicitous US foreign policy can be.
33
The following statement in this article brings up an important issue: "The possible indictment of Mr. Assange raised the question of whether the Justice Department abandoned concerns about setting a precedent that would chill press freedoms after WikiLeaks’s role in Russia’s 2016 election interference..." Perhaps the interpretation of Freedom of the Press should be expressed as "Responsible Journalism."
7
@Rod. Who decides what is “responsible”. The people in power who are not happy that their lies became public?
3
“The government bringing criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information is a dangerous path for a democracy to take.”
Exactly.
Many people may not like Assange’s form of journalism. But it IS journalism,regardless of any distaste readers may feel. Assange doesn’t steal or hack any information, he publishes information given to him to counter government secrecy. We found out a whole lot of truth from the Snowden, Manning and the Guccifer 2.0 leaks that pulled back the veil of the inner machinations of power. Power that constantly seeks to subvert the scrutiny of taxpayer dollars and commonly accepted ethics.
Another attempt by governments to silent critics and remove any obstacle to complete control and surveillance of the taxpayer. If the power structure has the ability to watch our every movement, key stroke and mouse click (which it clearly does), then people like Assange are one of the common people’s best allies.
55
@Jonny Boy
Well said.
The blind hatred of Trump corrupts everything here.
10
@Jonny Boy
Jailing the truth. American justice in action.
3
@Daphne. It’s Trump’s Justice Department in case you didn’t notice.
1
So happy my dad and father-in-law who we just honored on Veterans Day, don’t have to be living to see this creepy, corrupt cloud that has been invited to be part of our country’s concept.
I look at their pictures when they were young, in their uniforms, full of pride for their country, and I just feel sad. Every day it gets creepier, and let’s admit it, we all know why.
15
@MIMA
Yes.
We should blame Obama.
The truth is often a double edge sword. The DNC learned it the hard way as did I HRC.
The technology of today opens many doors. 30 years ago, it would have been nearly impossible to reach in and grab
the volume of information that Wikileaks published. Perhaps the days of pen, ink and typed reports were not so bad after all.
,
5
It will be interesting to watch as liberal defenders of Assange come to comprehend that their hero, Robert Mueller. is about to commit the biggest attack against freedom-to-know in the 21st Century.
Mueller is no civil libertarian or constitutionalist. He's a Deep State prosecutor like his former close associates Strzok and McCabe--out to get the president, no matter what the cost.
6
@Micoz Crazy, written by Willie Nelson and recorded by Patsy Cline, is a great song.
2
Or for crying out loud! This isn’t mission impossible.
1
@Micoz
Conspiracies aside, and yours is a GREAT BIG ONE, Muller is a REPUBLICAN. And if the President did nothing wrong, why is there an investigation?
2
He's essentially been a Russian agent pretending to be a journalist for years now, sadly. I used to support him. Remember how he was duped into thinking Hannity was contacting him with more info on Clinton? He's always had a dog in this fight. Where is the dirt on Trump? That would be plentiful. Why did he wait until Clinton beat Bernie to release what he already had? He was being a political actor and not a journalist. Fullest extent of the law please.
47
@Aaron well said, sir.
2
@Aaron So you liked him until he went after the Dems, eh? Seems to be a theme. And he publishes when he receives.
1
I was in the Military Intelligence branch during my time with the US Army, the tactical side.
The school for this was on San Angelo Air Force Base in Texas. After an extensive initial vetting process the army allowed me to go to this school for the tactical military intelligence training. This was 1988.
To get into the building where the school and confidential data was located, you needed a badge with a picture on it. The golden rule was: Don’t take anything else into that building and don’t take anything else out of that building other than your brain!
This is my problem with the Chelsey Manning’s and the Richard Snowden’s of the world: Where did that golden rule go?
With the ever-increasing use of the computer in the area of intelligence, the danger increases but the rule is still the rule. How could it even be possible for anyone, even the President of the United States, to break that golden rule without an alarm going off on a monitoring board where men weighing 400 pounds don’t immediately surround you asking questions?! It baffles my mind. The President can say “go away” but an army soldier or a US contractor/administrator shouldn’t be able to download at all without multiple checks and balances in place to stop leaks!
The problem with the system is not Julian Assange, the free press; the problem is the people who create systems that make these things possible in the first place should look at themselves in that mirror and put themselves on any future indictment.
8
Assange is a de stablising example of an international IT thief under the guise of doing the world a great service exposing secrets for the public good, he's nothing but an educated rabble rouser in league with the Russians, most probably advising him of how to prolong his unwelcome stay. Ungrateful for the asylum he receives, suing Ecuador for various restrictions placed on him among which is cleaning up after his cat and the place is most arrogant. Ecuador granted him citizenship which I assume makes it more difficult to get rid of him as there being a warrant out for him by the British Govt. in tandem with USA, should he step outside he'll be immediately arrested, as Australian or Ecuadorian? Ecuador does not have an extradition treaty with Britain which could pose a dilemma for the countries involved .
9
@Alice Lodge
Why are you so eager to jail a truth-teller?
2
@William Marsden
Some truths should not be told.
@William Marsden
That's not why they want to jail him.
If someone steals something, (ie Bradley Manning), and knowingly transfers it to me and I profit from dealing in that stolen material that's a crime. Indict away!
7
@MIKEinNYC
Using that logic, why has the U.S. government not indicted Zuckerberg and Sandberg as well as all of Facebook for stealing the personal data of their users, selling it to anybody, including governments and political organizations, for billions in profits?
Is it because Facebook is a billion-dollar US company that helps fill U.S. coffers and contributes hugely to a senior senator's campaigns and employs his daughter?
2
@William Marsden
People go on facebook voluntarily and freely give up their information in exchange for using fb, which I happen to detest. I do not use fb but I would imagine that when you sign up you agree to some sort of release and use of your info.
What Bradley Manning did was outright theft.
2
Gee, the new guy at the helm of the justice department is really doing a great job.
4
What would Nixon do?
10
Aussänge evidently conspired to steal and publish classified and private information, and conspired to interfere in US elections. There is clearly enough evidence to bring him to trial, and the government is right to indict him. If his claims of innocence are legitimate, let him defend them in a public court.
38
“claims of innocence”? Did you miss the bar set to the level; innocent until proven guilty?
4
Accidental Reveal is an oxymoron.
12
Many things with AI are becoming part of public records. Some things that you hold dearly on your Apple computer in secret can be taken whenever and deleted from your device to become part of public property. People with secrets are dangerous. Strategy is not based on secrecy. Often times thinking ahead will win the game and giving away your next move will not hurt you. AI like Bezos who wanted to digitize all the words in all the books in the world, also wants to digitize all your information. Remember the Internet is free, that means it has to feed on something. That something is the information on the devices that the public uses and safeguards to enact as if it is their own. This is not an anti-communist statement in that you must give away everything freely. But digitization leaves very few people with the actual know how on how to withstand an AI infiltration. The computer has many of its facts wrong and needs more and more information to triangulate the most accurate and detailed overview of citizens' histories. AI will do whatever possible to become 100% accurate even if that means stealing someone's homework from their home computer or personally held smart phone. The US government can not take it so personally that Assange exposed them, the US government should turn around and offer to those who are Americans safety in all accounts for all of us that call the soil of the United States home and giver of our mother tongue.
2
Where are the dumps of Russian or Chinese government emails?
57
@John From FL
EXACTLY!
Why hasn't wikileaks disrupted the world's greatest disrupter and purveyor of disinformation: The Neo-Soviet Union?
Reason: Wikileaks is a FSB (that's the successor of the KGB) creation.
3
Definitely read your filings before submitting them to court.
25
We do not know enough to evaluate the charges against Julian Assange, but two things are clear: 1) Assange is no hero, and 2) Robert Mueller is a highly competent and careful prosecutor. He will not bring charges that won’t stick. Stay tuned.
172
@Jeffrey Zuckerman 10 of 18 charges Mueller brought against Paul Manafort were dropped because they could not get a conviction on them. Apparently his carefulness and competency is dropping his successful conviction rate below 50%.
Time to change the channel on Mueller.
4
@K. Lazlo Hud
The charges that were dropped against Manafort were due to a single holdout juror who had no explanation for their vote.
A new trial most likely would have completed the Royal Flush by Mueller, but Manafort cooperated instead.
5
The brouhaha about the "mistaken cut and paste error" that appeared in the court papers is almost laughable. It's entirely possible that this "error" was included on purpose.
Wikileaks is not "journalism" in the sense that reporting news is for most of the media. It has been and continues to be a place to funnel highly secret information that can and does affect the world's political stage. Snowden's dump of information on Wikileaks had a deleterious effect on international relations, for better or worse.
There was a reason that Trump mentioned how much he "loved" Wikileaks approximately 137 times during the campaign. He and his campaign staff knew about the Wikileaks dump of negative information about Clinton before it happened, as Giuliani and others' statements showed. The question remains why no information dumps from the Trump campaign staff ever appeared on Wikileaks. Assange et al. were most likely in cahoots to ensure that Clinton would lose the election.
Are there truly First Amendment concerns for journalism in general about all of this? There is if one believes that Wikileaks represents real journalism. However, the cesspool of documents that Wikileaks' received from the Russians and published during the 2016 campaign does not qualify as journalism. Assange's hatred of Hillary Clinton was well known. As such, it clearly seems to have been an intentionally orchestrated attempt at smearing her to support Trump's candidacy, and likely a conspiratorial one.
183
@wysiwyg
Let's say that Clinton's campaign emails were leaked directly to the NYT and WashPost, which published them. Would you be in favour of indicting those newspapers? By your logic, I guess you would, which indicates that you don't believe in a free press, which in turn indicates that you don't believe in the U.S. Constitution.
It doesn't matter who leaked them. What matters is whether they were in fact Clinton campaign emails, which they were, and whether they were in the public interest, which they were. The pursuit of truth in the public interest is really all that matters. The rest is just letting the chips fall where they may.
7
Assange's arrogant, ignorant self righteousness about the often moral/ethical murkiness of free polities governing for the greater good morphed into something much worse as he, himself, was utterly corrupted by his own narcissistic rage and appetites. Yes Assange, the affairs of even free men are fraught with compromise and accommodation with evil but in your jihad to avenge you set yourself up as god and willingly became the weapon of true tyranny.
I hope you rot in hell.
36
@John L
What did this man ever do to you other than help reveal what was going on inside your government and U.S. politics? If we are afraid of the truth, well, that's about the end of democracy.
3
Assange is not going to be charged if the charges won’t stick under current law. The substantiation for any indictments are not fully known. All this hub bub about limiting freedom of the press is a bit premature and should not obscure the possibility that the man actually may have done something illegal. What is disturbing about this story is he may now weasel out.
12
No one was more excited about Trump's election, other than Trump himself, than Julian Assange. Julian Assange is a progressive, and Trump and Putin are his ideas of progress towards a better world. If convicted of anything Trump will pardon him, right?
9
Press freedom is the main point. But, some secondary aspects call for comment.
(a) The filing that intruded into the Assange filing was under 18 USC 2422(b) on prostitution of underage persons.
Perhaps the problem here is that there are so many filings, for so many different alleged crimes, that the feds who do the filing became lost. If so, the problem has become embarrassingly swollen through the exceptional growth of federal offenses, including 18 USC 2422(b), during the last forty or so years.
Among a great number of other additions to the US Code are items pertaining to prostitution. Until recently, such crimes have been, quite reasonably, state concerns, or indeed, municipal ones.
That is, such legislation is superfluous, no matter how much pointing with pride it might entail. Or feeling good.
Its main effect is to expand the labyrinth of federal law, increasing the chance that prosecutors or clerks will lose their way. Which is what seems to have happened in the Assange case.
(b) Filings under 18 USC 2422(b) are, one way or another, crimes involving prostitution. For the intruding case, which charges Mr. Kokayi, the designation "sex-crimes case" is misleading. Try "pimping".
(c) Likewise, "sexual abuse" misleads by oversimplifying the claims in the Assange case. How about "charges of sexual abuse, involving the conclusion of an initially consensual sexual encounter between Mr. Assange and two women."
Complicated statement. Complicated situation.
5
All the Ecuadorean Embassy has to do in cooperation with the US or British intelligence agencies, is to shove Mr. Assange out their embassy door, period. Mr. Assange is a conspirator enabling secret classified documents to become public. Apprehend him, try him and sentence him to the fullest extent of the law for high crimes against the US Government. We have a rule of law, we must enforce it.
42
And send the US journalists who printed his material to jail too as co-conspirators right?
13
@Realist
I'm on the fence. I'm still trying to fight it what he did and how it relates to the law. One thing you have to remember is that Assange is not a U.S. citizen. Therefore you can't say he betrayed the USA or is a traitor. He is not really even subject to U.S. law.
Explain the difference between Assange and other journalists. What would you charge him with?
8
@Realist"We have a rule of law" indeed we do, a lot of them. Too bad the US Government doesn't feel obliged to obey them. For example the 4th Amendment's requirement of a [non-secret] warrant before conducting searches of (and spying on), American citizens in their homes and at airports.
10
Assange is a hero. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump should give him a full pardon immediately. People who want him prosecuted do so for purely political reasons, both Democrats and Republicans. If Assange is prosecuted, he should be joined by the NY Times, NBC and CNN. The world I dreamt of when I was young has turned into a sad Orwellian 1984
31
@Mike I don't understand your flawed logic that's shared by many others. He published materials that were stolen. He published materials that were criminally obtained. Can you and others like not see the difference between that and real journalists protecting their sources?
116
@Mike
Assange is a hero?
What is his principled stand? We know it's not actually government and corporate accountability. If that was his concern, why is he a mouthpiece for Russia and not a critic of it?
Why don't his concerns even remotely resemble the degrees of concern for ... say government transparency in China or Saudi Arabia or or Venezuela even remotely mirror the concerns of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International?
Systematically releasing information detrimental to the West and helpful to Russia does not a hero make.
312
Wrong. He has been acting as a Russian agent against the interests of the United States.
27
I hope the irony of this is not lost on people. Hillary Clinton's emails will lead to the indictment of Assange and ultimately trump.
She had a personal server. 11 emails from that server were retroactively declared "secret". But that was not good enough for trump..."emails, emails, emails"...."Lock her up"
Be careful what you wish for (jail)...for you will surely get it.
439
@Allen82 But, What were the emails themselves? There is no evidence that they were ever compromised.
6
The election at this point is water under the bridge. Harping on “Hillary’s emails” as if there was no other reason the winnable election was lost absolves Clinton, the DNC and party apparatchiks of any wrong doing, culpability or blame; which in my opinion is squarely where it rests.
16
@Allen82
All this nonsense about "locking her up" for Clinton's use of a personal server pales significantly in comparison with Trump's insistence on using his personal phone to communicate with others - one that has been demonstrated to be hack-able by both the Russians and the Chinese!
Will the chants ever to change to "lock HIM up?"
110
Mueller charged 12 Russians with illegally hacking the DNC and Podesta. And the indictment further alleged that in order to most effectively influence the election the Russians conferred with Wikileaks to determine the best time to release the hacked info. If Assange participated in those discussions he’s guilty of a crime. If all he did was publish without regard to the Russisns’ interests there’s no case. We’ll see.
21
@George Santangelo
Clearest argument so far.
4
@George Santangelo
Interesting point. But does 'intent' have anything to do with it if you are dealing with the publication of true information? If the information is true, why does it matter, legally, when it is released or what is the motivation?
Public interest is also an important legal issue when it comes to publication. Clearly the emails were in the public interest.
The issue of when to publish is common in any newsroom. Ideally, you publish when you are ready. But "readiness" can also include considerations of "maximum impact." An editor might say, 'Let's wait for the weekend when we have more readers.' Everything published is an attempt not simply to spark but also to influence public debate. Would it have been illegal for a Canadian newspaper to urge Americans to vote for Clinton in order to protect NAFTA? I hope not. These are issues of truth and/or honest opinion. Not lies and propaganda. Yet even then the campaign trail is paved with targeted and purposeful lies. I have yet to see any politician, campaign manager or advertising agency indicted for that.
2
There are no accidents. The leak wasn't a mistake... and it's probably what's been pushing our president over the edge for the last week or so. Does anyone else get the feeling that this mess has entered the 3rd Act? I do.
195
@Patrick Hasburgh
Agreed. Mueller has been very careful, and very successful, at preventing mistakes/leaks. It seems unlikely his team suddenly got sloppy about so critical an issue.
12
@Patrick Hasburgh
Bingo!
@Patrick Hasburgh
I agree. I think the likelihood that this was purposeful is greater than not-purposeful.
Those concerned that Mueller make indictments this week, to preserve momentum and regain news dominance, should be happy. This of itself was a large and likely purposeful indictment. Perhaps tied to Roger Stone and his shenanigans.
They ought to subpoena Sean Hannity's social media accounts given he traffics with Assange as well. He offered Hannity some dirt of Mark Warner, senior Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee.
Another problem. Those stolen DNC emails showed they had their thumb in the scale for Clinton over Sanders.
That revelation led to the resignation of their head, Debby Wasserman Schultz, and others.
And no one would ever have known if the emails hadn't been published.
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@Talbot It was common knowledge the DNC owed the nomination to Clinton. They had passed her over for Obama years earlier and she had taken one for the team. Bernie was never going to get the nomination and when he lost by 3 million votes it was just the icing on the cake! Political parties can run whomever they choose and don't even need to have a primary if they don't want to! Bernie was not even entitled to a vote if they didn't want to give him one. You guys have to stop being such petulant brats and let this go.
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@Talbot That's rich. Pretty sure Sanders knew. If you're positing that there is no other way justice would have been served in this DNC matter, you're trying to prove a negative. Good luck with that.
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@Geraldine You've just explained why the DNC did nothing wrong, even though leadership had to resign. You've explained that Sanders had no chance--if that's the case, why the rigging? And if I recall, Clinton supporters were saying the same thing in 2016, while calling Sanders supporters names--eg petulant brats--then demanding they vote for Clinton. Do you realize how much this "support" undermined her?
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Assange is a hero, who at great personal sacrifice, has attempted to inform the world of the corruption of the world's elite. Whistle blowers everywhere beware. Journalists bewared. Democracy and free press are in peril.
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@Carolyn Egeli
I guess he was a hero, for Trump and Putin. But if he was personally sacrificing himself to inform the world of corruption of the world's elite, why did he absolutely refuse to address the corruption of Trump and Putin? He even worked for Putin on Putin's TV show. How is that being a hero for democracy and free press? The fact is, Assange is an enabler of Putin, a brutal authoritarian.
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I do not view a man who refuses to face courts of law in Australia, Great Britain and Sweden, each renowned for judicial impartiality, as a hero.
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@Carolyn Egeli
He's just another partisan, only he has some whizzy buttons and code that fascinate those who do not understand it.
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The dilemma in the heart of this potential indictment against mr. Assange is if journalists should follow the lead of secrecy from government. This secrecy may have two forms: secrecy to prevent harm others and the country; secrecy to prevent learning about potential illegalities inside the government. I bet many times both are correlated and there’s the dilemma. The Pentagon Papers was the prequel to Wikileaks. In that case the secrecy from government was to safe face, not harm others and cover illegalities. The people needed to know. War was taking many people. What mr. Assange uncovered, Manning papers and Podesta emails, would it fall in the same category of the Pentagon papers? Was he a journalist? Was journalism his intention, or was there another purpose? How to prove it? There’s the dilemma.
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Assange is not a journalist nor is he interested in “transparency.” He is nothing but a chaos agent, trafficking in stolen goods and working with Russia to disrupt Western society and democracy.
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When the Times repeatedly harvests Assange’s illegally-gathered information and repeats it in the pages of this paper, are they now agents of chaos? I struggle to see the difference between what Assange does and what Times and other media outlets do when they disclose the same information.
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@EWood
Is your definition of journalist a person who goes ga-ga over politicians, one who starts opining instead of reporting? Grandstanding?
These are the kinds of reporters left these days....
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@EWood
He also seems guilty of sexual assualt why else would he hide out in the embassay for years until the statute of limitations seemed to pass in the Swedish casee. Assange cares about one person Julian Assaunge--an egomanic.
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Seamus Hughes is a showboat and doesn't deserve a job in counter terrorism. Why didn't he take his finding directly to the source? Instead he chose to wave it around on Twitter to draw attention to himself. Twitter is an adolescent platform for small and inflammatory discourse.
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If Assange is now suing Ecuador (i.e., biting the hand that feeds him), wonder why they continue to give him asylum? Maybe Snowden in Russia could use a rommate/fellow-defacto-prisoner? (Can Russia smuggle Assange - or helicopter him - out of Ecuadorian embassy?).
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@Unconvinced I’m sure the Saudi’s could put together a team to smuggle him out. He might not be in great shape once out but the Russians might be able to reassemble him.
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@Unconvinced Or in a suit case.
If the dots are connected that WikiLeaks' publication of the stolen DNC materials occurred at the behest of the Russians, which appears to be the case, and that those materials were further used to influence the election by Russian and/or Trump campaign aides using advertising-based influence peddling on FaceBook, Twitter and other social media outlets, then Assange was "aiding and abetting" criminal activity by interfering in the American 2016 presidential election. PBS aired a 2 hour expose on FaceBook this past week in which the Trump campaign's digital advertising director claimed to have spent $100 M to purchase ads on FB during the 2016 campaign, and that he was personally coached on how to exploit the capabilities of the platform by FB employees. I'd like to know how this all ties in with Kellyanne Conway's database marketing business with its ability to microtarget individuals in specific localities such as Congressional districts, her connections to Cambridge Analytica with their stolen FB data on American voters, the fact that Steve Bannon was the CEO of Cambridge Analytica while serving as Trump's key political strategy advisor, and the fact that Zuckerberg admitted to Congress last spring that he has no idea what has happened to the data that was stolen from FaceBook, or how or to whom it has been disseminated. Now that the Dems have control of Congress, it is up to Rep. Adam Schiff to lead the House Intelligence Cmte. in order to shed light on these matters.
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@EJ The last season and final episodes of the tv series Homeland was about this. Corporate business disseminating false and incendiary stories to stir up the masses against opponents and subvert the democratic process. Once the President elect found out she cleaned house including the people who worked to expose the treason.
As much as he deserves it I don't want to see Assange made the scapegoat for Trumps inner circles. At least no-one is going to Ecuador with a bone saw.
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@rixax
Just as well since Assange is in London.
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@rixax Assange basically traffics in stolen goods for which he needs to be held accountable by those he has wronged. FaceBook is finally being held accountable for their culture of putting user privacy protection below their own priorities of growth and revenue generation. For years, Zuckerberg only made changes after being exposed for changing the settings without informing their users. Now they have been caught up in a web of their own design, and even after their own original VC investor Roger McNamee unsuccessfully attempted to persuade both Zuckerberg and Sandberg to report their findings of Russian election interference to the FBI in Oct. of 2016, they refused to expose and report the truth in order to protect FB and themselves. I have confidence in both Mueller and Adam Schiff, who will now lead the HR Intelligence Cmte. They will expose those in the Trump inner circles who need to be held accountable if that is what is uncovered in their findings. All bad actors in this most devastating state of affairs need to be held accountable and dealt with accordingly, including prosecution and incarceration if it comes to that.
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What a frightening day for journalists, and journalism in general, if Mr. Assange is arrested and extradited to the U.S. Whistle blowers and the journalists they rely on to disseminate the illegal and nefarious activities that they've discovered their governments and politicians perpetrating would be basically squashed by Mr. Assange's arrest and conviction.
The mainstream media has been inexplicably silent about Mr. Assange's treatment given what's at stake for their industry, and our society. It's almost a dystopian reality watching the government and political parties argue for the arrest and conviction of a journalist who had the temerity to reveal the mendacity of their words and actions. We've already slipped into an oligarchy and a plutocracy as a society, an unobstructed free press, whatever remains of it, is our last hope to the unfiltered truth.
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@FXQ I don't understand your flawed logic that's shared by many others. He published materials that were stolen. He published materials that were criminally obtained. Can you and others like not see the difference between that and real journalists protecting their sources?
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@FXQ: Unfortunately the corporate 'media' is already working hand-in-glove with the oligarchy/plutocracy against the 99%.
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@b d'amico The Pentagon Papers. Mic drop.
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Obama could have promised free passage to Assange, but didn’t. Obama, Trump, Clintons - all different actors coming out of the same door.
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Sounds like a “Get me Roger Stone” kind of “accident.” These days court filings are made electronically, I believe, so those misplaced pages can’t be checked for fingerprints. Wonder what the digital signal might tell...
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With a corrupt government such as ours, whistle blowers, rather than being praised, will be punished. Once again, I am embarrassed by my government - and it’s not just the Republicans.
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Who in the world is supposed to be stupid enough to believe that this was an accident? This is Mueller we're talking about. The fact that he had indicted somebody accidentally leaked out? The fact that he had indicted Julian Assange accidentally leaked out? How does it profit Mueller to have this disclosed? No idea. But seriously?
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@Richard Mclaughlin: I believe you could be right, but that raises troubling considerations. Secret indictments beget secret prosecutions, which smell of extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, secret courts, etc. Secrets have their legitimate place, everyone's got them (except for John Lennon and his monkey). Unfortunately our gov't. has all too often used the cover of secrecy to hide illegality, and now sounds like the boy who cried wolf. I wouldn't mind, however, if we could put Trump & Co. on super double secret probation.
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It profits Mueller directly because 1) his ridiculous investigation has been out of the public eye recently during the run up to the midterms. 2) Mueller’s existence is likely under the peril of accountability because of the new acting AG who is no fan of the legal framework that allows this sort of investigation and 3) another PR ‘indictment’ that won’t be tried, won’t be proven but justifies the political narrative.
So worrisome this stuff is going on and the mainstream press is being complicit.
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@Richard Mclaughlin
Why do you assume this was Mueller?Mueller isn't investigating sex cases. The document this came from wasn't a Mueller case.
Numerous agencies have been investigating Assange for decades Any of them could have done this for a member of reasons.
I haven't seen Mueller leak anything The Russia investigations leaks have been coming from Trump.
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This does illuminate the difference between being a paid Russian agent out to subvert American democracy, and Edward Snowden, a man who risked everything to educate the American people to the dangers of unregulated intelligence gathering on them.
Snowden is a hero, as far as I am concerned.
Assange knowingly helped the Russians to attack our democracy itself for the purpose of, not making people aware, but of turning us into Russia, a pretend democracy with pretend rule of law and pretend independent media.
The last always poisons democracy so the billionaire oligarchs rule.
Hugh
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@Hugh Massengill Is it possible that Assange is a whistle-blower holding our and other governments accountable, but in this particular case acted out of frustration and pique after being relentlessly vilified and chased into a corner? How does Assange's releasing DNC emails containing mostly office-chatter compare to Pres. Trump divulging classified information obtained from a close ally to the Russian Ambassador and Russian Foreign Minister in May 2017 in the Oval Office before they even had a chance to sit down? Which do you think is a greater security threat?
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@Larry Difference- THEY'RE STOLEN.
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@b d'amico: They were LEAKED! From a DNC insider who was sick of the corporate 'political party' criminality.
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Silencing and/or punishing those who shed light on the inner workings of our governments would indeed be another nail on the coffin of democracy. The current administration's intent on delegitimizing the press (especially by using the "fake news" frame) is really an attempt to disempower US citizens. The press is for the people, not against; the press helps keep governments accountable to its citizens.
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The angle that troubles me most about this story is that it allows us a window into just how exhausted and stressed Mr. Mueller’s ultra professional team must be to have made such a grievous error. I trust that they are doing the right thing as far as freedom of the press is concerned (I cannot believe that someone like Robert Mueller, who loves his country and believes in the Constitution, unlike our president, would do anything to undermine that), but it is becoming obvious that the enormous burdens the Special Counsel’s staff must bear in terms of what they know about Trump, the long work hours (most recently they worked on Veteran’s Day while our president lounged around tweeting), and the vitriol they must take without being able to answer could be taking a massive toll. The quest to dot every “i” and cross every “t” could now be backfiring.
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@Frau Greta "The angle that troubles me most about this story is that it allows us a window into just how exhausted and stressed Mr. Mueller’s ultra professional team must be to have made such a grievous error."
Uh, what? The Justice Department, whose people have been told in no uncertain terms that they now must work for Donald Trump, made this "grievous error" in its routine filing at the Eastern District of Virginia.
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@Frau Greta
It was not the Mueller team that made this error and included words from an Assange filing into another filing.
It was someone in the Eastern District of Virginia who was filing an indictment of a sexual crime who lifted the paragraphs on Assange and pasted it into that filing.
Did you read the article? I guess not.
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@Frau Greta Was this done by someone on Mueller's team? This was for an unrelated sex-crimes case that does not require a Special Prosecutor to investigate. It should never have crossed Mueller's desk. It just means that Mueller's team prepares indictments and other court documents by recycling some of the same documents and templates as other Federal prosecutors. It might not even be feasible for Mueller's to completely quarantine their work from other prosecutors without severely hampering their ability to work. Anyway, it just gives us more insight into how our government vilifies and persecutes whistle-blowers while allowing our President to jeopardize our national security without consequence so far.
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"No collusion," as our President likes to incessantly chant, translates to "collusion" in the Orwellian world in which he lives.
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@Didier
And collusion is a polite word for conspiracy with a hostile intelligence agency fix our elections.
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My understanding is that the Ecuadorians are about to kick him out of their embassy and the British police are waiting to pick him up on charges of having jumped bail on charges they have against him. The Swedes apparently have given up on the rape charges that were against him there. Quite a guy!
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@Penseur Assange does not have a particularly sympathetic persona. But then, it would take a special type to take the risks he has had to take in order to hold governments accountable. I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn he has a few skeletons in his closet.
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@Penseur
Sweden withdrew all charges in 2017 because it had no case. The charges came from two women who both had had consensual sex with him that, they claim, became non-consensual (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341) He believed the Swedish indictment was a ploy to get him extradited to the U.S. because his site published the Manning documents, which at the same time were published by the NYT and The Guardian.
Strange that so many people here eager to believe his guilt?
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There is no evidence that the Podesta emails were obtained by Russian hacking. The Times is merely asserting that as if it were a fact. The evidence actually suggests that they came from within the Democratic Party itself.
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@jim kunstler I had to laugh when I read this.
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Makes sense. I leak my own emails whenever I want to lose an election.
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Which DNC official took a meeting with a proxy for Russian intelligence based on the timing of the release of these documents which were stolen from a private citizen of the United States? Oh wait, didnt the person who admitted to that have the last name Trump?......try again.
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One could not dream up such irony as this.
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Thank you Seamus Hughes!
This would not be news to Assange, so what's the objective of leaking it to the public now?
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I'm sure Trump will give him a full pardon, given all the help Assange gave him in getting elected.
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@katherinekovachI - I doubt it. Trump only cares about himself. He demands unconditional loyalty, but it is only one way.
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@katherinekovach
Not in my view. Assange is not a voter, unless, of course, he is not at the Ecuadoran Embassy (or London) at all, and he is one of those fraudulent voters Trump seems to be so worried about. What kind of hat and shirt wardrobe does Assange sport?
See, this is why I've always advised people to be careful with the copy/paste function...
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@Jem
Yup. A stray click of that ol' Ctrl V ...
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@Jem ...the importance of proofreading...
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@Jem
Perhaps deliberate care was taken in this incident.
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I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as the Trump administration debated whether to indict Julian Assange of give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I'm guessing the compromise was a mis-handled indictment.
Sad.
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