Julian Assange's endless fight with the US justice system is finally over:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge related to his alleged role in one of the largest US government breaches of classified material.... Under the terms of the new agreement, Justice Department prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence — which is equal to the amount of time Assange has served in a high-security prison in London while he fought extradition to the US. The plea deal would credit that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country.
In all, Assange has been either in prison or holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for 12 years. Even if you think he's guilty of a serious crime—helping Chelsea Manning hack classified records—that's more than a long enough penalty to pay. It's well past time to make a deal like this.
So, what are the odds of recidivism?
probably pretty low, if only because no one who might have access to leak to him would take the risk after what happened to manning.
And afterwards when he goes on a life long martyrdom tour?
it will be annoying but that's not a good reason to imprison him further.
His entirely predictable bad example and the entirely predictable effect he'll have on other idiots makes a better rationale for incarcerating him than anyone in Guantanamo.
+1
well, no one should have been in guantanamo and i think the 12 years assange was stuck in prison or an embassy is pretty good disincentive for other. and i also think if the DOJ thinks it was a reasonable deal, i'll defer in this case. they're not known for going easy on espionage and related crimes.
"life long martyrdom tour"
Well, that's what lots of right wingers have been living off of for decades now. Why stint the lefties? I look forward to hearing him whine some more on Democracy Now. The last time, he was claiming no contact with Roger Stone, in a way that strongly suggests he actually did collaborate with the Trump campaign and/or Russia.
The thing with then-Bradley Manning seemed more like journalism than aiding and abetting Russia in the 2016 campaign, at least the way I've read it.
He's not a lefty but he'll be promoted as one.
Northern Mariana Islands?!? How did the case end up there??
He's flying back to Australia, and the Marianas Islands are the most convenient American jurisdiction on the way. That shows how much of a done deal this is, as far as DOJ is concerned. He'll be there to allocute, which will amount to confirming everything they've already worked out. And it's US jurisdiction, so Uncle Sam will have custody if he says anything different. But he won't, if he knows what's good for him.
He did alot more than that, but his usefulness as a Russian agent has degraded significantly.
It went from a "Pentagon Papers" sort of thing to disinformation op--for Brexit, against Hilary, etc.
Yep. Peddling stolen goods and not caring how or what those goods were made him a tool of the nefarious.
I have mixed feelings about this deal. If Assange was acting as who he purported to be (a person committed to free disclosure of information and, essentially, a journalist), then it's long past time for him to have been freed.
But if, on the other hand, he was working as a conscious agent of Russian Intelligence and interfering with the election on Trump/Putin's behalf, then I would be opposed to any deal. He should spend his life in prison. I think we needed a trial to determine the truth of the matter or, at a minimum, his plea deal should've included a requirement to truthfully disclose whether he was working for the Russians
I can't imagine believing his voluntary statement on anything whatever it was he said.
I’m assuming that it would’ve been done as part of his allocution and therefore under oath. I’m also assuming that the government knows the truth about whether he was a conscious agent of Russian intelligence and could easily prove it. Which would make it extremely dangerous for him to lie to the court.
And, for me, this is the most important question. If he was functioning as a person who wanted to do the right thing but was duped by the Russians, then he’s as much of a victim as the rest of us. But if he was a conscious agent then he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
I just think that we’re entitled to know the truth.
"If Assange was acting as who he purported to be (a person committed to free disclosure of information and, essentially, a journalist) . . . ."
We can discount that possibility based simply upon Wikileaks' track record. They were almost entirely devoted to publishing things that embarrassed decent countries. They barely touched Russia or China.
I was taught that the best way to avoid being embarrassed by the revelation of horrible things that I’d done was to have not done them in the first place.
+1
Be that as it may, do you believe Russia and China have acted based on that principle?
Autocracies can never be held to such a principal, that's why conservatives so love them, they're not responsible for anything.
No, clearly they cannot be held to the same standard for the reasons given by cld. Russia, in particular, has committed countless atrocities. But then no reasonable person considers Russia a “decent country”.
"I was taught that the best way to avoid being embarrassed by the revelation of horrible things that I’d done was to have not done them in the first place."
Generally I agree with you, but the term "horrible things" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. We all do all sorts of things that we aren't proud of, and things that we'd be embarrassed if other people could see (yelling at a misbehaving pet, getting a bit too drunk at a party, saying something rude even if we immediately regret it); we also pretty much all break the law in minor ways from time to time (driving over the speed limit; making a mistake on a tax form, etc.). We also all have, on some level, an expectation that that stuff will probably never be publicized, or prosecuted.
Selective leaking of that stuff in high profile ways, thus, can be both destructive and unfair. So, it's worth drawing a distinction between a hacker uncovering, say, secret pentagon papers indicating that the government is wholesale lying about the conduct of a war one the one hand, and, say, releasing at campaign-critical moments mostly trivial-if-embarrassing information about one candidate while carefully avoiding doing the same for another.
Bingo. That was Wikileaks in a nutshell, which is why giving Assange any sort of benefit of the doubt at this point would be a sick joke.
-10
Maybe the US government could take that advice. Their approach to avoiding embarrassment has been to classify their mistakes away from public view and then persecuting/prosecuting those who uncover that bad news. I'm not so naive as to nominate Assange for a medal, but if I had to choose between trusting him and trusting our "national security " establishment to do the right thing, I'm not at all confident about the choice.
Just because he was right once doesn't clear him of being a tool all the other times.
I'm confident in choosing Assange.
There is a small, but perhaps measurable chance that Wikileaks' reticence to touch Russia or China was powered by polonium.
I don't see how it matters - his actions ended up the latter.
Agreed. 12 years is a long time to have lost one's personal freedom. He didn't commit a violent crime.
But now, he's Australia's problem.
I agree with Mr Guthman and Crissa. Assange was an active agent for the Russians to harm Hillary and elect Trump...much of our current societal agony is directly due to Julian Assange...for me, give him another 15 years to ponder the evil he has inflicted on the United States...and the world. To Hell with Assange...Traveller
You seem less uncertain now than when KD opined about Assange previously.
We still don't know if there is a body count attached to those unredacted names. If so, a life sentence would be in order.
I don't know if he was deliberately working for Russia, but he was deliberately interfering in the US election & doing harm, so he may as well have been.
.
15 is generous.
I'm fine with him being released to a country and having his passport stripped and reputation trashed.
Ten years is a long time.
You can subtract the amount of time he spent in the Ecuador embassy trying to escape accountability and recalculate from there. Factoring in the fact that he was attempting to flee by that act. And then decide his true intentions. SMH….
Assange released information that included the names of agents in hostile countries, summer of whom may have been killed as a result.
The appropriate sentence is life of no one died and death if the government been prove his information releases killed someone.
Please sober up before you post here again.
You don't think it is reasonable to give the death penalty to people who deliberately release secret information that results in the deaths of American agents?
No.
Eh, this is complicated.
On whether he was "punished enough", well, from a legal perspective[1], he avoided consequences for most of that time. And even if you discount that, I know if I ever get in serious trouble, I'd like to at least have the option to do my time in someone's embassy.
I think what the USG got that it wanted here was the espionage conviction. I think it wanted to send a message - stuff on this side of the line is journalism, stuff on that side is a felony the feds don't lose with. I do not consider this a positive development, but there we are.
I really wonder if he's done with the shenanigans. Being through the wringer like that, and getting older, tends to knock some sense into even thick skulls. But he is a strange, and strangely focused, person.
[1] And some other perspectives. At least at one time Assange claimed to be an anarcho-capitalist; there's more than a little "I fought the law" going on here.
I never understood the media obsession with this creep.
There's a lot of things you've never understood.
Helping Chelsea Manning leak classified documents? No biggie.
Working with Russian security services to leak hacked DNC emails and helping to elect Trump? Worthy of an eternal sentence to the lowest level of hell,
This is fine. He's probably suffered enough. But Assange and that creep Snowden are both Russian assets and I wish people would acknowledge this more.
Exactly.
Heck, I'd accept Snowden back in the states if he'd admit his guilt.
No.
Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson and Thomas Massie are all quoted in the Post cheering the decision.
What else do you need to know?
As for Assange, he's in a country where the girls are used to fighting back when assaulted. Hope he finds out the hard way.
Plus one.