[skinster]

Trump 'Approved' of Pardon Offer to Assange in Exchange for Source of DNC Leaks, Jen Robinson Says
It has been alleged by members of the Democratic Party and elements of the press that the source of the DNC Leaks published by WikiLeaks is linked to the Russian state, a position that has been consistently denied by both Julian Assange and the Russian state.

US President Donald Trump was "aware of and had approved of" US Congressman Dana Rochbacher and Mr Charles Johnson meeting with Julian Assange in order to secure the source of the DNC Leaks, in exchange for some form of "pardon, assurance or agreement" which would "both benefit President Trump politically" and prevent a US indictment against and extradition of Mr Assange, the Old Bailey heard on Friday.

The assertions were read into open court on behalf of barrister Jennifer Robinson, who was present at the meeting in the Ecuadorian Embassy on 15 August 2015. This was before any indictment was issued against the WikiLeaks publisher, The US government's representative told the court that they do not dispute the offer was made during the meeting but do appear that they will contest the truthfulness of the offer itself. Ms Robinson's statement notes that Mr Rohrabacher and Mr Johnson told Ms Robinson and Mr Assange that they "wanted to resolve the ongoing speculation of Russian involvement in the Democratic National Convention" and that it was "damaging to US Russia relations and reviving old Cold War politics".

Ms Robinson has represented Mr Assange on numerous matters since 2010, both as a solicitor and a barrister.

Ms Robinson states that the Congressman made clear that "the source of the DNC leaks would be of interest value and interest" to the President. Mr Rohrabacher apparently described what would be a "win/win solution" for Mr Assange to leave the embassy and "get on with his life".

Ms Robinson's notes that Mr Rohrabacher said he would "then return" and see what "would be done" to prevent Mr Assange's indictment and extradition. Mr Assange did not provide the identity of any source", the statement said.

Mr Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if he is convicted on all of the charges in the US. The charges almost entirely relate to his role in publishing the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, Guantanamo Bay detainee files and the Diplomatic Cables, which revealed war crimes and other criminality and abuse committed by the US government and US-backed forces.
https://sputniknews.com/uk/202009181080 ... nson-says/

[ckaihatsu]

Corporate publications hostile to exposure of CIA spying on Assange and their own reporters

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... a-s21.html


Release WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, say current and former world leaders

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/rele ... s-n1240597


Julian Assange 'should NOT be charged because WikiLeaks files were already available online'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... nline.html

[skinster]

[Igor Antunov]

Julian Assange 'should NOT be charged because WikiLeaks files were already available online'

This doesn't matter. They will argue he 'compelled' reporters to leak sensitive information by creating and operating an avenue for that. Also he made Clintons look bad, so he's gonna hang in some cell, just after the cameras stop working.

We've seen it all before, sigh. There is no reasonable argument to be had here, this is a political prisoner of the US regime.

[ckaihatsu]

This doesn't matter. They will argue he 'compelled' reporters to leak sensitive information by creating and operating an avenue for that. Also he made Clintons look bad, so he's gonna hang in some cell, just after the cameras stop working.

We've seen it all before, sigh. There is no reasonable argument to be had here, this is a political prisoner of the US regime.

I think it's in *very* poor taste, and obviously inappropriate, for you to compare Assange to Jeffrey Epstein.

Assange did something *important*, exposing imperialist *war crimes*. He has the popular support of people all over the world.

[Igor Antunov]

I think it's in *very* poor taste, and obviously inappropriate, for you to compare Assange to Jeffrey Epstein.

Assange did something *important*, exposing imperialist *war crimes*. He has the popular support of people all over the world.

Epstein was a billionaire with many powerful political allies. He was abandoned and betrayed by just a few. Assange is a random Aussie supported by a bunch of keyboard warriors like us and libertarian teens, and his enemies comprise every powerful politician in the west. Assange will get hanged ten times harder than Epstein did. You can see it in his face. Dead man walking.

[ckaihatsu]

Epstein was a billionaire with many powerful political allies. He was abandoned and betrayed by just a few. Assange is a random Aussie supported by a bunch of keyboard warriors like us and libertarian teens, and his enemies comprise every powerful politician in the west. Assange will get hanged ten times harder than Epstein did. You can see it in his face. Dead man walking.

Your own "support" sounds disingenuous since you're characterizing Assange *badly*. It's really *pessimism* at a time when you should be making your support crystal-clear if you really do support him.

[Igor Antunov]

Your own "support" sounds disingenuous since you're characterizing Assange *badly*. It's really *pessimism* at a time when you should be making your support crystal-clear if you really do support him.

It's called realism and I've always been a realist. I also have an aversion to internet slacktivism. So voicing my 'support' on the internet is just a waste of time.

[ckaihatsu]

It's called realism and I've always been a realist. I also have an aversion to internet slacktivism. So voicing my 'support' on the internet is just a waste of time.

And yet here you are. Got nothing better to do?

[skinster]

Julian Assange: Press Shows Little Interest in Media ‘Trial of Century’
Labeled the media “trial of the century,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing is currently taking place in London—although you might not have heard if you’re relying solely on corporate media for news. If extradited, Assange faces 175 years in a Colorado supermax prison, often described as a “black site” on US soil.

The United States government is asking Britain to send the Australian publisher to the US to face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. He is accused of aiding and encouraging Chelsea Manning to hack a US government computer in order to publish hundreds of thousands of documents detailing American war crimes, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. The extradition, widely viewed as politically motivated, has profound consequences for journalists worldwide, as the ruling could effectively criminalize the possession of leaked documents, which are an indispensable part of investigative reporting.

WikiLeaks has entered into partnership with five high-profile outlets around the world: the New York Times, Guardian (UK), Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain). Yet those publications have provided relatively little coverage of the hearing.

Since the hearing began on September 7, the Times, for instance, has published only two bland news articles (9/7/20, 9/16/20)—one of them purely about the technical difficulties in the courtroom—along with a short rehosted AP video (9/7/20). There have been no editorials and no commentary on what the case means for journalism. The Times also appears to be distancing itself from Assange, with neither article noting that it was one of WikiLeaks’ five major partners in leaking information that became known as the CableGate scandal.

The Guardian, whose headquarters are less than two miles from the Old Bailey courthouse where Assange’s hearing is being held, fared slightly better in terms of quantity, publishing eight articles since September 7. However, perhaps the most notable content came from columnist Hadley Freedman (9/9/20).

When asked in an advice article: “We live in a time of so much insecurity. But is there anything we can expect from this increasingly ominous-looking winter with any certainty?” she went on a bizarre tangential rant ridiculing the idea that Assange’s trial could possibly be “politicized,” also crassly brushing off the idea that his young children would never see their father again, and never answering anything like the question she was asked. Holding people to account “for a mess they could have avoided,” she notes, “is not ‘weaponizing’ anything — it is just asking them to do their jobs properly.” She also claimed that believing Assange’s trial was politicized was as ridiculous as thinking antisemitism claims were cynically weaponized against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, which, she meant to suggest, was a preposterous idea. This was not an off-the-cuff remark transcribed and published, but a written piece that somehow made it past at least one editor.

Like the Times, the Guardian appeared to be hoping to let people forget the fact it built its worldwide brand off its partnership with WikiLeaks; it was only mentioned in a forthright op-ed by former Brazilian president Lula da Silva (9/21/20), an outlier piece.

The Guardian should be taking a particularly keen role in the affair, seeing that two of its journalists are alleged by WikiLeaks to have recklessly and knowingly disclosed the password to an encrypted file containing a quarter-million unredacted WikiLeaks documents, allowing anyone—including every security agency in the world—to see an unredacted iteration of the leak. In 2018, the Guardian also falsely reported that Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort had conducted a meeting with Assange and unnamed “Russians” at the Ecuadorian embassy (FAIR.org, 12/3/18). And, as former employee Jonathan Cook noted, the newspaper is continually being cited by the prosecution inside the courtroom.

There were only two articles in the English or French versions of Le Monde (9/7/20, 9/18/20) and only one in either of Der Spiegel’s English or German websites (9/7/20), although the German paper did at least acknowledge its own partnership with Assange. There was no coverage of the hearings in El País, in English or Spanish, though there was a piece (9/10/20) about the US government thwarting a Spanish investigation into the CIA spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London—accompanied by a photo of a protester against his extradition.

The rest of corporate media showed as little interest in covering a defining moment in press freedom. There was nothing at all from CNN. CBS’s two articles (9/7/20, 9/22/20) were copied and pasted from news agencies AP and AFP, respectively. Meanwhile, the entire sum of MSNBC’s coverage amounted to one unclear sentence in a mini news roundup article (9/18/20).

Virtually every relevant human rights and press freedom organization is sounding the alarm about the incendiary precedent this case sets for the media. The Columbia Journalism Review (4/18/19), Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation note that the government includes in its indictment regular journalistic procedures, such as protecting sources’ names and using encrypted files—meaning that this “hacking” charge could easily be extended to other journalists. Trevor Timm, founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the court this week that if the US prosecutes Assange, every journalist who has possessed a secret file can be criminalized. Thus, it essentially gives a carte blanche to those in power to prosecute whomever they want, whenever they want, even foreigners living halfway around the world.

The United Nations has condemned his persecution, with Amnesty International describing the case as a “full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression.” Virtually every story of national significance includes secret or leaked material; they could all be in jeopardy under this new prosecutorial theory.

President Donald Trump has continually fanned the flames, demonizing the media as the “enemy of the people.” Already 26% of the country (including 43% of Republicans) believe the president should have the power to shut down outlets engaging in “bad behavior.” A successful Assange prosecution could be the legal spark for future anti-journalistic actions.

Yet the case has been met with indifference from the corporate press. Even as their house is burning down, media are insisting it is just the Northern Lights.
https://fair.org/home/julian-assange-pr ... f-century/

[skinster]

Long but great article by Jonathan Cook on the Assange trial, particularly the disgusting role of two Guardian so-called journalists in all of this. The Guardian or those two dickheads should be at the court since they're mentioned almost daily, but mostly they remain silent.

[skinster]

Also some hypocrisy in Australia, from Caitlin Johnstone:

Australia Suddenly Cares About Its Journalists When They Get In Trouble In China

[skinster]

[skinster]

Summary from John Pilger at the end of the trial.

[ckaihatsu]

NYT hailed for publishing Trump’s tax returns, Assange pilloried for exposing DNC-Clinton corruption in 2016

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... y-s30.html

[skinster]

[skinster]

Discussion on Assange hosted by Miko Peled, with Roger Waters, John Pilger, Ray McGovern and some guy I don't know.

[Stardust]

‘The Guardian’s silence has let the UK trample on Assange’s rights in effective darkness’

WISE Up, a solidarity group for Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, is due to stage a demonstration outside the Guardian offices on October 22 to protest the paper’s failure to support Assange as the US seeks his extradition in an unprecedented assault on press freedom.

The date chosen for the protest marks the tenth anniversary of the Guardian’s publication of the Iraq war logs, leaked by Manning to Assange and which lie at the heart of the US case to reclassify journalism exposing crimes against humanity as “espionage”.

[Stardust]

Assange Campaign

Send Emails:

Request support for the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group by sending emails to the representatives in Federal Parliament

[skinster]

It was the 10 year anniversary of the release of the Iraq War Logs on Thursday.

Here's an update on things.