Prosecutors Have Prepared Indictment of Julian Assange, a Filing Reveals

Every time a big leak happens, the news cooks up a new narrative about who Wikileaks is and what their goals and motivations are. And every time it's just something the editor wants to be true. Its a better story for him to be the hero or the villain. But if you frame the actions of what wikileaks said they were going to do (publish verifiable leaks much more indiscriminately than the press), they've been pretty consistent.

Back in the day he was a champion on the progressive side for a while with all the 2nd fake Iraq war stuff and dumping all of Sarah Palin's emails among other things.

I might be partially wrong on the Russia claim. There is some Russia stuff but it looks like they did not publish the huge Russia dump they claimed to have in 2010 but supposedly it was released to a Russian newspaper.

Even if he was innocent of the crime which he personally chose to avoid defending himself against in court — and hiding in an embassy until the statute of limitations expires makes me think otherwise — the fact that he definitely skipped bail and the fact that he’s living freely in an embassy not a prison both independently means he’s neither “innocently” nor “imprisoned”.

At the time that I posted this 100% of the initial 20+ comments were under the impression that this particular indictment was related to Assange.

No, it (allegedly, at least) was not.

It's maybe arguable that it was, or if it wasn't that that's all Assange was aware of about it's mechanism of serving it's function, but to the extent that either of those is sufficient to raise a first amendment claim in the first place, it is still a disputable fact claim, which is what we have trials to weigh evidence to resolve.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/electio...

It's not "very clear" to me that Assange's agenda is the "fall of America".

But it doesn't matter much as any leaked document always get studied and verified as much as it is possible. If the leak information is a source code for a state written virus, NSA documents, or banking information, in the end it is journalists at news papers that dig further, verify and follows up on the leaked information.

"Whistle blowers go through significant efforts to get us materials and often significant risks. There's a 27 year old who works for the DNC that was shot in the back, murdered, just two weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7FkLBRpKg

Right from his mouth, not Russian propaganda - unless you're suggesting Assange himself is a Russian propagandist. It's a very interesting interview regardless.

The diagram in that story is just comical, right?

Unfortunately, Assange and in effect WikiLeaks took a political and partisan position, and gave the moral footing for the authorities to that end.

I highly doubt it's something we expect. Plenty of media outlets passed information along similarly to Wikileaks. Any charges limited to actions we know publicly are going to be a disaster on so many levels, and everyone involved knows it. It would be monumentally stupid to pursue charges based only on what we know publicly. The NYT story makes this clear.

I suggest withholding judgement until we see the actual indictment. The other indictments that are (possibly) related that have been made public have provided a lot of detail and evidence.

The rumors that he knew that he was talking with the GRU and that the documents were stolen by the Russian government is one thing.. But the idea he had foresight that the Russian government was trying to get Trump elected is something that might come out.

Progressives, like myself who supported Wikileaks are curious at what Mueller has put together. If the worst is true, then Assange used Wikileaks as a tool to try to make sure Clinton did not become president. It's known that Clinton did not like Assange before the hacking leak, it's my guess that Assange published those documents in some effort to undermine her election chances. Part of me, think's that's OK. if it's OK for someone to come out with some crimes that someone might have committed and stand up and testify to that, then it's in the voting public's best interest to have all the facts..

Then again, there's the possibly non-zero chance he knew that this was coming from the GRU or at least the Russian government, which anyone in his org should have had experience in asking themselves the larger questions around this...

Any good Assange did blowing the whistle has been completely undermined by his collusion with Russia to help thwart democratic institutions and processes.

I classify Snowden as a patriotic whistleblower. I classify Assange as a Russian agent.

Treat both appropriately.

"Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.

One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky."

Russian asset.

I'm failing to see what your point is.

If he stays he will never receive a trial or be allowed to face his accusers.

Either way his human rights are violated. That's why it's arbitrary detention.

It's why his indictment has been kept secret; they want to physically grab him before they have to justify, legally, the charges against a journalist who published things in the public interest. If they weren't being shady about the whole thing, he could have been charged by now - but doing so would require them to be subject to legal scrutiny. They don't want that, because they don't have a leg to stand on. They won't tip their hand officially until he's already physically in their (or their allies') custody.