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Assange Extradition- Britain Agrees to Extradite Publisher to Country that Plotted to Assassinate Him (1 Viewer)

I don't know what I think about Assange's potential defenses as a journalist. Though he's clearly - at best - an opinion commentator. 

But having said that, this is clearly funny - 

Assange Has Been Charged

Barry J. Pollack, one of Assange’s attorneys, said, “The only thing more irresponsible than charging a person for publishing truthful information would be to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice to Mr. Assange. "

:lmao:

 
Bucky86 said:
ulian Assange has been charged, prosecutors reveal inadvertently in court filing

:pickle:  
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Mike Levine‏Verified account @MLevineReports 13h13 hours ago

Guys, this is truly an amazing find by @SeamusHughes. My hypothesis is: prosecutors used a filing in an Assange-related case as a template for a filing in this case, but forgot to change the one paragraph. If true, it means sealed charges have been filed against Julian Assange.

https://twitter.com/MLevineReports/status/1063253354829291520

 
Any chance that the "inadvertent" release of charges was actually intentional... just to #### with them?

 
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squistion said:
Mike Levine‏Verified account @MLevineReports 13h13 hours ago

Guys, this is truly an amazing find by @SeamusHughes. My hypothesis is: prosecutors used a filing in an Assange-related case as a template for a filing in this case, but forgot to change the one paragraph. If true, it means sealed charges have been filed against Julian Assange.

https://twitter.com/MLevineReports/status/1063253354829291520
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It’s actually just one word, the name of the defendant.

 
I will be curious to see what the charges are against Assange. I think he's a partisan hack but ... not to go all ren here, simply publishing stolen materials shouldn't be prosecutable. We've been through this before, right?

 
whoknew said:
I will be curious to see what the charges are against Assange. I think he's a partisan hack but ... not to go all ren here, simply publishing stolen materials shouldn't be prosecutable. We've been through this before, right?
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Yeah I think so, it’s an interesting issue but it’s probably the reason they haven’t been charged for the Manning leak. I think the hacking of data at issue in the DNC and CIA leaks and possible coordination with outside intelligence make these situations possibly different.

 
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I have definitely not followed this Assange thing closely. Anyone else think that he was actually in Ecuador and not the Ecuadorian embassy in London?

:bag:

 
I'm not trying to be mean, it's just that the only thing many people know about him is that he's been locked in a building for years.

 
Henry Ford said:
I'm not trying to be mean, it's just that the only thing many people know about him is that he's been locked in a building for years.
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I just thought the building was in Ecuador. :shrug:

Give me some credit for admitting my ignorance maybe? Please? Just a little? :)

 
Henry Ford said:
I'm not trying to be mean, it's just that the only thing many people know about him is that he's been locked in a building for years.
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We know. You're not trying.

In the words of the great philosopher Yoda: "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

 
the moops said:
I just thought the building was in Ecuador. :shrug:

Give me some credit for admitting my ignorance maybe? Please? Just a little? :)
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Oh, absolutely.  I'm just funnin'.

Why did you think he couldn't leave the building?

Edit: because tone is impossible on the internet, I am absolutely not trying to actually insult you at all.  I'm slightly amused but genuinely interested.

 
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Henry Ford said:
Oh, absolutely.  I'm just funnin'.

Why did you think he couldn't leave the building?

Edit: because tone is impossible on the internet, I am absolutely not trying to actually insult you at all.  I'm slightly amused but genuinely interested.
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Thinking about it now, I am like - duh - what an idiot. Just had it in my head that he was in Ecuador. And again, now thinking about it, it makes no sense that he wouldn't be able to leave the embassy

 
whoknew said:
and that so many gov't officials think he's basically an agent of foreign gov'ts
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This has always been an evidence-free smear that states use to discredit Wikileaks.  It's a stupid meme from the same breed that sold us Iraq.  

 
ren hoek said:
This has always been an evidence-free smear that states use to discredit Wikileaks.  It's a stupid meme from the same breed that sold us Iraq.  
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That's incorrect. 

In general, they've said what they think - with allegations -  and Assange's behavior is consistent with those beliefs. 

Having said that, I'm still willing to wait for the evidence before I form a complete opinion on him.

 
whoknew said:
That's incorrect. 

In general, they've said what they think - with allegations -  and Assange's behavior is consistent with those beliefs. 

Having said that, I'm still willing to wait for the evidence before I form a complete opinion on him.
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Even in their narrative, that Guccifer 2 sent the leaks to Wikileaks, there was no ostensible reason for Assange to know the source was affiliated with the Russian state.  There wasn't even a reason for him to think it was wrongful.  Hedges made an interesting point about this.

What is happening to Assange should terrify the press. And yet his plight is met with indifference and  sneering contempt. Once he is pushed out of the embassy, he will be put on trial in the United States for what he published. This will set a new and dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration and future administrations will employ against other publishers, including those who are part of the mob trying to lynch Assange. The silence about the treatment of Assange is not only a betrayal of him but a betrayal of the freedom of the press itself. We will pay dearly for this complicity.

Even if the Russians provided the Podesta emails to Assange, he should have published them. I would have. They exposed practices of the Clinton political machine that she and the Democratic leadership sought to hide. In the two decades I worked overseas as a foreign correspondent I was routinely leaked stolen documents by organizations and governments. My only concern was whether the documents were forged or genuine. If they were genuine, I published them. Those who leaked material to me included the rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN); the Salvadoran army, which once gave me blood-smeared FMLN documents found after an ambush; the Sandinista government of Nicaragua; the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Central Intelligence Agency; the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel group; the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); the French intelligence service, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE; and the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosovic, who was later tried as a war criminal.

We learned from the emails published by WikiLeaks that the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton paid her donors back by approving $80 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, enabling the kingdom to carry out a devastating war in Yemen that has triggered a humanitarian crisis, including widespread food shortages and a cholera epidemic, and left close to 60,000 dead. We learned Clinton was paid $675,000 for speaking at Goldman Sachs, a sum so massive it can only be described as a bribe. We learned Clinton told the financial elites in her lucrative talks that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best-positioned to manage the economy, a statement that directly contradicted her campaign promises. We learned the Clinton campaign worked to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Donald Trump was the Republican nominee. We learned Clinton obtained advance information on primary-debate questions. We learned, because 1,700 of the 33,000 emails came from Hillary Clinton, she was the primary architect of the war in Libya. We learned she believed that the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. The war she sought has left Libya in chaos, seen the rise to power of radical jihadists in what is now a failed state, triggered a massive exodus of migrants to Europe, seen Libyan weapon stockpiles seized by rogue militias and Islamic radicals throughout the region, and resulted in 40,000 dead. Should this information have remained hidden from the American public? You can argue yes, but you can’t then call yourself a journalist.
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His behavior is consistent with journalists who expose corruption and war crimes.   That's what he's done.  That it could theoretically be favorable to an opposing state doesn't change the fact that these documents serve the public interest.  This is information people should want to know regardless of their political affiliations.  

 
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ren hoek said:
Even in their narrative, that Guccifer 2 sent the leaks to Wikileaks, there was no ostensible reason for Assange to know the source was affiliated with the Russian state.  There wasn't even a reason for him to think it was wrongful.
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This perplexes me. Assange has said that he knows the source wasn’t Russian. How did he know that?

Also a point about his status as a journalist - journalists check their sources to ensure they’re authentic. What steps did Assange take to verify the source of this information, ie the person or persons sending him the data?

 
https://twitter.com/rcfp/status/1063575181212434433

IN RE THE APPLICATION OF REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS TO UNSEAL CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE

1. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (the “Reporters Committee” or “Applicant”) respectfully moves this Court for an Order unsealing court records— including the docket and any criminal complaint, indictment, or other charging document— from the United States government’s sealed criminal prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (“Assange”) (hereinafter, the “Assange Prosecution”).

INTEREST OF THE APPLICANT

2.The Reporters Committee is anunincorporated nonprofit association of reporters and editors dedicated to safeguarding the First Amendment rights and freedom of information interests of the news media and the public. The Reporters Committee has participated as a party and as amicus curiae in First Amendment and freedom of information litigation since 1970. The Reporters Committee frequently represents the interests of the press and the public in matters implicating the public’s First Amendment and common law rights of access to judicial proceedings and court records.

3. The Reporters Committee, like all members of the public and the press, has a strong interest in access to criminal matters pending in federal district courts. Both the press and the public have a particularly powerful interest in access to sealed court records related to the government’s prosecution of Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
This perplexes me. Assange has said that he knows the source wasn’t Russian. How did he know that?

Also a point about his status as a journalist - journalists check their sources to ensure they’re authentic. What steps did Assange take to verify the source of this information, ie the person or persons sending him the data?
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I'm not sure.  They've never really defined how they handle sources/methods.  Technically any news outlet with a secure dropbox for documents would be acting as a "Russian agent" even if the documents were sent through an encrypted service.  

Again, no idea.  They have never said.  Craig Murray has insinuated that the leaks came from two different sources possibly working for US intel agencies.  Assange basically admonished Murray and said he doesn't speak for Wikileaks.  What I've never understood about the Guccier 2 alias is, if the Russian government presumably setup this cutout to get the documents to Wikileaks under the guise of a nonstate actor, why would they be so comically obvious and unsophisticated about it? 

There had to be a more professional way of concealing their role in the hack if it actually happened that way. 

 
A look at the prosecutor who made the typo about Assange.

>>

The cyber unit in the Eastern District of Virginia is known for aggressively prosecuting hackers and fraud schemes even if the suspects, like Assange, can be linked to Northern Virginia only by its large population of data centers. Earlier this year, Dwyer won at trial against a Latvian computer programmer who helped hackers test their malicious software against anti-virus programs, a case that exposed connections between cybercriminals and the Russian government. The programmer’s Russian co-conspirator pleaded guilty and testified at the trial, as did a Virginia college student who used their program in creating his own program that spies on computer users’ keystrokes. Another co-conspirator, who initially argued he wasn’t responsible for the crimes people committed using his technology, pleaded guilty as well.

In those cases, Dwyer argued aggressively for people who make software used maliciously to be held responsible for all the financial losses linked to their work. Another Russian-born hacker he prosecuted went to prison for nine years after stealing thousands of credit cards and earning millions in bitcoin.<<

 
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ren hoek said:
This has always been an evidence-free smear that states use to discredit Wikileaks.  It's a stupid meme from the same breed that sold us Iraq.  
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It is not an evidence free smear. You may not be convinced but I have repeatedly stated evidence of it to you and of course not all evidence is public. 

A public trial would certainly help that. 

 
ren hoek said:
I'm not sure.  They've never really defined how they handle sources/methods.  Technically any news outlet with a secure dropbox for documents would be acting as a "Russian agent" even if the documents were sent through an encrypted service.  

Again, no idea.  They have never said.  Craig Murray has insinuated that the leaks came from two different sources possibly working for US intel agencies.  Assange basically admonished Murray and said he doesn't speak for Wikileaks.  What I've never understood about the Guccier 2 alias is, if the Russian government presumably setup this cutout to get the documents to Wikileaks under the guise of a nonstate actor, why would they be so comically obvious and unsophisticated about it? 

There had to be a more professional way of concealing their role in the hack if it actually happened that way. 
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The world (and Clinton) knowing it was them is the point. 

 
ren hoek said:
Again, no idea.  They have never said.  Craig Murray has insinuated that the leaks came from two different sources possibly working for US intel agencies.  Assange basically admonished Murray and said he doesn't speak for Wikileaks.  What I've never understood about the Guccier 2 alias is, if the Russian government presumably setup this cutout to get the documents to Wikileaks under the guise of a nonstate actor, why would they be so comically obvious and unsophisticated about it? 

There had to be a more professional way of concealing their role in the hack if it actually happened that way. 
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Marcie Wheeler is a great source, no complaints there. 

A couple points, and Wheeler may have made them herself, not sure, but anyway:

- Murray isn't saying he got data from two different sources, he's saying WL did, and on that he's speculating as much as you or I or any Joe schmoe would. The reason of course is that DNC and Podesta are two different things. That's true. Podesta was part of the campaign (and the DNC IIRC) but those are inherently two different data sources. That's true. Totally different networks. Of course that doesn't defeat the idea that one person or group - or say the GRU - could have raided both caches.

- As for the Podesta data - It would be a simple matter for JA to say 'duh Murray gave me the drive, ask him.' - This is also true for the original data set that JA himself holds. The obvious thing for him - just like the DNC - is to allow a forensic copy of the data be made. That would be easy for him to do. But he doesn't.

- Assuming you believe him here - Murray is actually discussing an intermediary, not a direct source. He's also vague on what he received. He could have gotten an encryption key for instance, not data. 

- Murray seems to confuse his Podestas, He's referring to Tony, not John, but he seems to want to drag 'Podesta' into it because, yaknow, it's Podesta data. Sort of like Sarah Sanders claiming that Jim Acosta hit the WH intern, this is the kind of point one inserts when someone wants to persuade someone of something because the actual straight way can't work. But the idea that the IC was monitoring Tony's data (I really doubt that considering the who/what/why etc.) is pointless as far as John is concerned (same problems would arise with him btw). So why bring up KSA???

- On a similar note that is why Binney was so important, because they needed a technical explanation as to how data would have been downloaded to a drive and manually delivered. Obviously that has been blown to bits, most recently by Binney himself.

- About the lousy Russian operational security - You have to realized this has been described in indictments. The DOJ has sworn pleadings that relate to this with detail. This is in the bag. BUT if you have read anything about US-USSR/Russia spycraft over the decades you'd know there has been a lot of shoddy work. By us and them. Putin himself has sort of derisively referred to the cyber types, and while it was meant to mislead I think he - a classic cold KGB spy type - really does think very little of the hacker brigades. And it's true, the people that run them are old line intelligence officers, but the operatives themselves are just like you'd expect, outcasts and losers living on the fringes of society who are not meticulous in how they operate. These are smash and grab types. Look at what the Dutch, Germans, French and Ukrainians have found, these people have been regularly exposed. I'm not really sure they or Putin or FSB/GRU care. That's the mentality these days. It's not the stuff of John LeCarre, the old rules have changed.

 
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I don't know how we can have this argument at all without knowing what the charges are.  Since Freedom of the Press wouldn't cover espionage, hacking or intentionally defrauding fair elections.

 
ren hoek said:
 Even in their narrative, that Guccifer 2 sent the leaks to Wikileaks, there was no ostensible reason for Assange to know the source was affiliated with the Russian state.  There wasn't even a reason for him to think it was wrongful.  Hedges made an interesting point about this.
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ren hoek said:
...Even if the Russians provided the Podesta emails to Assange, he should have published them. I would have.
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- You're talking about two different things here. One is the technical detail which would have shown Assange the source of what he was getting, which you claim was unknowable (though like we discussed JA says he does know).

The other is the moral implications, the wrongness of what he was doing. I'm not sure I see the point of raising this when really you and many JA defenders have been constantly trying to create a physical bridge whereby the DNC/Podesta data would have been manually downloaded and transferred. But then you say well oh yeah if it was the Russians he would and should have totally done that.

I think you and the Defend Assange movement really mean the latter. It's information, information is power and its ownerless in nature, and there is inherent good in sharing it. That's the argument, simple enough.

The problem is I think it's Assange himself who has been driving the first point, that there was some physical means of transfer because really he knows the other point is legally untenable putting himself personally at risk, therefore he has to create or show some sort of alibi. The other point is simple enough. What am I or anyone going to say - you hold the wrong beliefs or values? You are who you are, I disagree with your beliefs but ok that's me. It just won't fly in court. The struggle is in the massive argumentative bridge that Assange constantly asks his followers to build, which is the creation of doubt of what the basic metadata trail shows and will show. Again, when you see people under suspicion trying to craft alibis out of thin air they're really trying to impede the logical arrival at their front door.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
The problem is I think it's Assange himself who has been driving the first point, that there was some physical means of transfer because really he knows the other point is legally untenable putting himself personally at risk, therefore he has to create or show some sort of alibi. The other point is simple enough. What am I or anyone going to say - you hold the wrong beliefs or values? You are who you are, I disagree with your beliefs but ok that's me. It just won't fly in court. The struggle is in the massive argumentative bridge that Assange constantly asks his followers to build, which is the creation of doubt of what the basic metadata trail shows and will show. Again, when you see people under suspicion trying to craft alibis out of thin air they're really trying to impede the logical arrival at their front door.
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Perhaps also pertinent is that the rhetoric about the "people's intelligence service" is that it is (somehow) unbiased, neutral. Just reporting the facts, Ma'am. Except there seems to be issues of choosing which facts to present, and issues on editorializing that undermine the supposedly "neutral" position

 
msommer said:
Perhaps also pertinent is that the rhetoric about the "people's intelligence service" is that it is (somehow) unbiased, neutral. Just reporting the facts, Ma'am. Except there seems to be issues of choosing which facts to present, and issues on editorializing that undermine the supposedly "neutral" position
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Exactly he's not a mere data publisher or even launderer at all.

One thing that's emerged is that WL itself has varied the number of documents that came from Podesta, and thus may not have published everything they received. 

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
Marcie Wheeler is a great source, no complaints there. 

A couple points, and Wheeler may have made them herself, not sure, but anyway:

- Murray isn't saying he got data from two different sources, he's saying WL did, and on that he's speculating as much as you or I or any Joe schmoe would. The reason of course is that DNC and Podesta are two different things. That's true. Podesta was part of the campaign (and the DNC IIRC) but those are inherently two different data sources. That's true. Totally different networks. Of course that doesn't defeat the idea that one person or group - or say the GRU - could have raided both caches.

- As for the Podesta data - It would be a simple matter for JA to say 'duh Murray gave me the drive, ask him.' - This is also true for the original data set that JA himself holds. The obvious thing for him - just like the DNC - is to allow a forensic copy of the data be made. That would be easy for him to do. But he doesn't.

- Assuming you believe him here - Murray is actually discussing an intermediary, not a direct source. He's also vague on what he received. He could have gotten an encryption key for instance, not data. 

- Murray seems to confuse his Podestas, He's referring to Tony, not John, but he seems to want to drag 'Podesta' into it because, yaknow, it's Podesta data. Sort of like Sarah Sanders claiming that Jim Acosta hit the WH intern, this is the kind of point one inserts when someone wants to persuade someone of something because the actual straight way can't work. But the idea that the IC was monitoring Tony's data (I really doubt that considering the who/what/why etc.) is pointless as far as John is concerned (same problems would arise with him btw). So why bring up KSA???

- On a similar note that is why Binney was so important, because they needed a technical explanation as to how data would have been downloaded to a drive and manually delivered. Obviously that has been blown to bits, most recently by Binney himself.

- About the lousy Russian operational security - You have to realized this has been described in indictments. The DOJ has sworn pleadings that relate to this with detail. This is in the bag. BUT if you have read anything about US-USSR/Russia spycraft over the decades you'd know there has been a lot of shoddy work. By us and them. Putin himself has sort of derisively referred to the cyber types, and while it was meant to mislead I think he - a classic cold KGB spy type - really does think very little of the hacker brigades. And it's true, the people that run them are old line intelligence officers, but the operatives themselves are just like you'd expect, outcasts and losers living on the fringes of society who are not meticulous in how they operate. These are smash and grab types. Look at what the Dutch, Germans, French and Ukrainians have found, these people have been regularly exposed. I'm not really sure they or Putin or FSB/GRU care. That's the mentality these days. It's not the stuff of John LeCarre, the old rules have changed.
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Wheeler hurls childish insults at people who question her theories and then blocks them on Twitter.  But sometimes she is fair and that particular article was a good rundown on Murray/Assange.  I don’t see why Murray couldn’t have inside knowledge about the sources if he did play a direct role in the exchange.  

John Podesta’s Center for American Progress has received tons of money from foreign sources.  

https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=24899

Not sure how surveillance would work given his role but it seems plausible that his communication would be monitored given their ties to and cash coming from gulf states.  

About Binney, Duncan Campbell misrepresented Binney’s position in his hitpiece doxxing on Adam Carter.  

https://youtu.be/L3cDZU9Tp7w

Binney has reaffirmed his view that it was not a hack, but an internal pull.  Campbell either misunderstood or just flat out lied about Binney’s position on the DNC leaks.

This image of the Russian operatives as both sophisticated enough to swing a 2 billon dollar election, but too bushleague to know how to cover their tracks is too much of a caricature for me.  Why even bother with the dopey cutout alias if they obviously didn’t care about hiding it?  It really doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense because it’s comical beyond reason.  

But if you have some reading that lends credibility to why RU would bother putting up a sloppy, halfassed cutout when they were presumably trying to cover their tracks I’ll look into it a little more.  

 
Edward Snowden‏ @Snowden 

You can despise Wikileaks and everything it stands for. You can think Assange is an evil spirit reanimated by Putin himself. But you cannot support the prosecution of a publisher for publishing without narrowing the basic rights every newspaper relies on.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
- that Assange is wanted for Manning crimes, or that Assange is wanted for election crimes. Well I think the IC primarily wants him for the Vault 7/8 releases, then for the election, and frankly I think the Manning issue has faded and has for some time.
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Thread on this here: https://twitter.com/AssangeLegal/status/1064872108252192768

Nice catch by Jonasson.  

- In May of 2017 what exactly was it known that Assange was wanted for? Manning? Maybe the election?
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The deal they reportedly had to let the USG redact portions of the Vault7 releases in exchange for temporary immunity and exit from the Ecuadorean embassy fell through about a month before Pompeo's infamous speech.  WaPo's David Ignatius appears to affirm John Solomon's Waldman story here.  

Laufman described what the government might want to achieve, and Waldman laid the groundwork for a deal to give Assange limited immunity and a one-time “safe passage” to leave the London embassy and talk with U.S. officials. Laufman played to Assange’s belief that he was a publisher, the documents show; he put an offer on the table from the intelligence community to help Assange assess how some hostile foreign powers might be infiltrating or harming WikiLeaks staff.

As the negotiations warmed, Assange unleashed his first leak on March 7, 2017, with about 8,000 pages of documents on the CIA’s cyber weapons. It did not deter the talks, however, since U.S. officials were more concerned about what he might release next.

Just a few days after the negotiations opened in mid-February, Waldman reached out to Sen. Warner; the lawyer wanted to see if Senate Intelligence Committee staff wanted any contact with Assange, to ask about Russia or other issues.

Warner engaged with Waldman over encrypted text messages, then reached out to Comey. A few days later, Warner contacted Waldman with an unexpected plea.

“He told me he had just talked with Comey and that, while the government was appreciative of my efforts, my instructions were to stand down, to end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told me. Waldman offered contemporaneous documents to show he memorialized Warner’s exact words.

Waldman couldn’t believe a U.S. senator and the FBI chief were sending a different signal, so he went back to Laufman, who assured him the negotiations were still on. “What Laufman said to me after he heard I was told to ‘stand down’ by Warner and Comey was, ‘That’s bull####. You are not standing down and neither am I,’” Waldman recalled.

“The constructive, principled discussions with DOJ that occurred over nearly two months were complicated by the confusing ‘stand down’ message,” Waldman recalled.

On April 7, 2017, Assange released documents with the specifics of some of the CIA malware used for cyber attacks. It had immediate impact: A furious U.S. government backed out of the negotiations, and then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo slammed WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.”

Soon, the rare opportunity to engage Assange in a dialogue over redactions, a more responsible way to release information, and how the infamous DNC hacks occurred was lost — likely forever.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/394036-How-Comey-intervened-to-kill-Wikileaks-immunity-deal
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Assange and IC had a deal in the works, and upon learning Assange had offered to assist the investigation, Comey told them to stand down.  That was the end of the Assange/DOJ honeymoon.  

- that Manafort/Trump is trying to bring Assange to the US in the first place - they may have been trying to get Assange to freedom or give him transit to (yes) Russia.
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AP: Can I just ask you, though — do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? 

TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it's OK with me. I didn't know about that decision, but if they want to do it, it's OK with me. link
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Trump had already given Sessions his blessing to arrest Assange (4/23/17).  You'd think if there was some sort of collusion plot Wikileaks was holding over on Trump, they sure would have come out with it by now.  We see how combative Trump is with Mueller, Schiff, Sessions.  Yet when it comes to the risk of exposure by Assange, someone he's fine with his DOJ prosecuting "if they want to," someone he ostensibly was in collusion with and could completely blow open the whole conspiracy Trump is supposedly hiding, it's radio silence.  

- that Trump is cleverly manipulating the DOJ into doing whatever he wants. This is Qanon stuff and that's WL's claim. However it's pretty damned obvious that Trump isn't :drive: the DOJ. He'd like to, and he's trying like hell to, but he is obviously not very clued into reality much less top level DOJ/IC strategy. His own DOJ is pleading with the courts to ignore his public statements as having nothing to do with actual policy. It's #### like this that really makes me think that WL is in deed malicious in its intentions.
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What doesn't make sense is how people explain some of Trump's actions (hiring Whitaker, ####ting all over the investigation on twitter, discrediting Cohen but supporting Manafort) as being intentional enough to try and shut down the investigation.  Yet when it comes to the DOJ teeing off on Assange, all of a sudden the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. In this belief system, Trump has hired AG Whitaker to shut down the Russia investigation, but doesn't care if AG Whitaker (or Sessions for that matter) goes after Assange, potentially blowing up the Russia investigation.  Trump obviously doesn't care about that thread being pulled.

Why is Trump so unafraid of Assange being prosecuted and potentially exposing the conspiracy?  Because it never happened.  That's why.  

 
ren hoek said:
What doesn't make sense is how people explain some of Trump's actions (hiring Whitaker, ####ting all over the investigation on twitter, discrediting Cohen but supporting Manafort) as being intentional enough to try and shut down the investigation.  Yet when it comes to the DOJ teeing off on Assange, all of a sudden the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. In this belief system, Trump has hired AG Whitaker to shut down the Russia investigation, but doesn't care if AG Whitaker (or Sessions for that matter) goes after Assange, potentially blowing up the Russia investigation.  Trump obviously doesn't care about that thread being pulled.

Why is Trump so unafraid of Assange being prosecuted and potentially exposing the conspiracy?  Because it never happened.  That's why.  
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Thanks for the thoughtful response. Just on this, I think it's a fair point. Obama got this too, is he an all powerful manipulator or a hopeless incompetent, pick one. 

But with Trump and the DOJ and his own case, firing Sessions and hiring Whitaker, yes, is an attempt to interfere. So was the firing of Comey. And you can see the problem with Wray, he has a career of accomplishment and adheres to norms by and large. That's not a problem with Whitaker. 

The argument about Trump being unafraid, unworried, or neutral about WL doesn't ring true though. Trump has only been a fan of WL, he's supported them, promoted them and reacts virulently when the issue of election interference is raised. 

WL is pushing this point about Manafort/Ecuador, right? I do think the report is funny, it's odd. So is the one in the Guardian, both seem let's say placed. So I think you could question of the motives of whoever is getting this to the NYT and Guardian - could be USG source, could be Manafort, could be some defense lawyer, could be the Trump team, who knows - but in order to do that I don't think you have to go down the road of saying that Trump is in favor of or against prosecuting Assange. I personally think he would and could pardon him (and Obama certainly opened the door to that with Manning), but I'd also admit that's speculation on my part. There's a lot less reason to believe Trump wants to see Assange prosecuted though. Like nothing he has said or done indicates that.

 
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Henry Ford said:
They made him a citizen.  I don't know Ecuador's rules on that, but it has to interfere with just kicking him out.
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Does it? I think it’s just Politics right now. I don’t think Ecuador or any country is required to harbor in their missions any Joe/Jose Ciudano who is wanted for extradition in a foreign country.

In fact apparently the citizenship was granted on a fraudulent basis, to get Assange to Russia on a diplomatic visa, so really the whole thing should be null. I don’t think Ecuador just goes around knighting people as citizens; there are probably actual requirements to be met just like the US & UK.

 
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