That hinges on the extent to which Assange personally exfiltrated documents.
NYT vs US established that its totally OK to publish documents you receive. They're trying to make Assange a 'conspirator' in the exfiltration for working with Manning. Apparently the extent of his alleged direct involvement was receiving a password hash but not actually cracking or doing anything with it: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/downl...