--- Why? There is mounting evidence that Assange - whatever his idealistic intentions might have been with Wikileaks - has become an active conspirator in working with the Russians (and unsavory Americans) in undermining US democracy.
Personally, I'm waiting until all the cards are revealed before I solidify my opinion on this.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indic...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...
If Assange is tried by a Trump DoJ, it almost certainly won't be tied to the 2016 election. Rather, it would be for any of Wikileaks' earlier actions - projects like Cablegate or Collateral Murder. Congressmen have already called for Espionage Act charges over those releases, so it's not a hard outcome to imagine. That would open up a range of alarming questions about handling of classified information, where current practice favors openness and disclosure but the legal situation isn't entirely clear.
Narrowly interpreted, transmitting or even linking to classified materials violates secrecy laws even after those materials leave classified control or become publicly accessible. New York Times Co. v. United States set a precedent in which journalists are not prosecuted for handling or publishing leaked materials. Alongside Branzburg v. Hayes and Lovell v. City of Griffin, which extend press rights to citizens generally, it creates a general presumption that only the actual exfiltration of classified material is prosecuted. But NYT v. US was decided narrowly on prior restraint, and no strict protection for publishing already-leaked classified materials exists.
Convicting someone for publishing classified materials which someone else leaked to them would effectively destroy this protection. Convicting a non-resident non-citizen on Espionage Act charges would create a bizarre situation in which interference with United States military actions by any party anywhere in the world would ostensibly be a capital crime in the US.
Those are the concerns at hand. No matter how guilty someone might be of a specific charge, it's still a serious problem if they're convicted of something unrelated which should never have been a crime.
We don't live in a black and white world. Assange is undoubtedly a remarkable individual but he has a lot to learn and being the pariah whistleblower type is not good for him to learn some of the finer lessons, e.g. in diplomacy.
Assange controls when leaks are leaked, he makes sure Wikipedia is not as transparent as it needs to be, he has sought to monetize war and misery by the deals he has done. Compare and contrast with John Young at Cryptome.
Assange was in control of timing the 2016 email thing, there is no evidence beyond waffle said in Washington that the 'Reds' were behind the hack that got those emails.
Suggesting otherwise is to not fully appreciate how the Russians view the US and its politics. In the Kremlin they do not care who gets in to the White House because they know that whomever is there the policy towards Russia will be the same. If they do engage constructively with the US for a more peaceful world with free trade then they know that they can't do so with a 'puppet' regime elected by their meddling. It is not how it works.
So why do so many people think otherwise? Fascism. Hard to bandy that word around but it is true. Unless the left offer a party with policies that are appealing to people there is no option apart from fascism when regular capitalism fails. Right now we are in a period of badly failing capitalism, nobody has had wage increases for a long time, stocks only go up because of share buy back scams, the 2008 crash was a can kicked down the road by QE and the signs are all there. 1930's Germany was the same, they didn't vote for someone advertising themselves as a fascist, they voted for the Trump of their time.
So where did the emails come from? If it was not the Russians then it is time to look at the time stamp meta data, which I have not done myself but I believe it points to places outside of the Russian time zones. The same people wanting Brexit and the breakup of the EU are meddling, manipulating everyone to this lovely and actually fascist era of politics we are waking up to.
They appear to have been downloaded at about the speed of a USB stick, but that leaves a lot of unanswered questions.