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Comment by counterpig | Hacker News Reader

The charges from Sweden have been dropped and bought several times depending on their usefulness to the Americans it is not a case of the system working as intended.

It is a foreign power putting diplomatic pressure on the Swedish government to put pressure on a man who has embarrassed them.

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Yup, very convenient that the pseudo-charges (He was never formally charged) were maintained for ten years, but as soon as they complicate extradition to the US they get dropped.

It's not the only thing in the Assange case which is blatantly political persecution. You got to wonder how most of the press can keep pretending it's not.

My understanding is that Sweden under no circumstances would have been able to extradite him to the US, and certainly not with less difficulty than extradition from the UK.

The fact that Assange fled Sweden for the UK, skipped bail, and then concocted a Swedish conspiracy theory is a bit on the implausible side.

>He was never formally charged

My understanding is that the Swedish system does not allow formal charges in abstentia.

I actively try to avoid anything that look like a conspiracy, but when I read the news that the prosecutor was going to make a statement my first thought was that it would be very convenient for the US if Sweden dropped the case. And then the actually statement came out and they dropped it.

And in this case, William Barr really doesn't want Assange here, in order to protect his client, Donald J. Trump. And that's why we will not see the extradition to the United States while the Justice Department has been essentially neutered by, what would you call it? Deep State?

The current administration, given its stated opposition to a deep state, is perhaps best characterized as The Shallow State.

I'm more inclined to think Trump's impeachment will be well timed to the date of Assange's extradition. The three letter agencies can live with an erratic president, but not one that might pardon or otherwise protect Assange. (Barr will eventually side with them, not Trump)

I think you don't know how impeachment works. Trump will not be removed from office, no matter what the lower house of the US government happens to do.

The Senate would have to have 67 votes in a majority republican controlled body to remove him. That simply will not happen -- even in the House, which is politically far more independent, the Democratic Party was not able to get a single Republican vote, and even had defectors from their own party just to authorize the proceedings at all.

You can't win an impeachment trial without broad bipartisan support, and there is exactly zero bipartisan support for this proceeding.

To be fair, support for removing Nixon from office among Republicans appeared rather rapidly, and there were still Republicans staunchly in support of him until the end https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-took-a-long-time-for...

Nixon had a whole lot of other things going against him.

Nixon also had a whole lot of things going for him, he was hardly an unpopular president and the watergate scandal is sort of ridiculous with hindsight because he won re-election by a wide margin. The 1968 election was close and he likely would have lost if not for the trainwreck that was Wallace, but in 1972 he absolutely trounced McGovern.

Nixon was a generally popular president and it took a long time for his support to start slipping. His famous line "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." wasn't nearly as in poor taste as it seems in hindsight.

I agree, though it is worth remembering that Nixon had strong GOP support right up until the day he did not. Trump is safe now (though I figure the odds of him being impeached are 100%) but if anything comes out that seriously deteriorates the support of the base, the Senate can change gears very quickly.

Yeah I don't see how the trial will go through, there is no way they get 67 votes in the senate. He would have to literally walk up and shoot a nun in the face on camera before those Republicans would budge, they've already made up their mind he's forgiven for (almost) any crimes while he's in office.

Some of them have already said they'd be fine with him shooting someone in broad daylight on a NYC street, and think that this isn't an impeachable offense.

That's hyperbole though. they're just showing that they are trumpers until something ridiculous like that happens. I'm sure there are some zealots but 99% of them would not be cool with him murdering someone in cold blood.

It's not hyperbole, this is directly from Congressional Republicans. They believe that "executive immunity" means the President can commit whatever crimes he wants in office, and is immune from prosecution until his term is over.

They actually brought that hyperbole up to one of the supporters and they asked "well, so what did that person do that he would shoot them?"

In the absurd hypothetical that the President decided to shoot someone, that's a relatively reasonable question one might ask...

> (Barr will eventually side with them, not Trump)

You aren't paying attention very closely.

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