June 26, 2024
One of the
longest sagas of political persecution is coming to its terminus. That is, if
you believe in final chapters. Nothing about the fate of Julian Assange seems
determinative.
His accusers and inquisitors will draw some delight at the plea
deal reached between the WikiLeaks founder’s legal team and the US Department
of Justice. Others, such as former US Vice President, Mike Pence, thought it
unjustifiably lenient.
Alleged to have
committed 18 offences, 17 novelly linked to the odious Espionage Act, the June
2020 superseding indictment against Assange was a frontal assault on the
freedoms of publishing and discussing classified government information. At
this writing, Assange has arrived in Saipan, located in the US commonwealth
territory of Northern Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific, to face a fresh
indictment. It was one of Assange’s conditions that he would not present
himself in any court in the United States proper, where, with understandable
suspicion, he might legally vanish.
As
correspondence between the US Department of Justice and US District Court Chief
Judge Ramona V. Manglona reveals, the “proximity of this federal US District
Court to the defendant’s country of citizenship, Australia, to which we expect
he will return at the conclusion of proceedings” was also a factor.
Before the US
District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, he will plead guilty to one
count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information under
the Espionage Act of 1917, or section 793(g) (Title 18, USC). The felony
carries a fine up to $10,000 and/or up to 10 years in prison, though Assange’s
time in Belmarsh Prison, spent on remand for some 62 months, will meet the bar.
The felony
charge sheet alleges that Assange knowingly and unlawfully conspired with US
Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, then based at Operating Base Hammer
in Iraq, to receive and obtain documents, writings and notes, including those
of a secret nature, relating to national defence, wilfully communicated those
documents from persons with lawful possession of or access to them to those not
entitled to receive them, and do the same from persons unauthorised to possess
such documents.
Before turning
to the grave implications of this single count and the plea deal, supporters of
Assange, including his immediate family, associates and those who had worked
with him and drunk from the same well of publishing, had every reason to feel a
surreal sense of intoxication. WikiLeaks announced Assange’s departure from
London’s Belmarsh Prison on the morning of June 24 after a 1,901 day stint, his
grant of bail by the High Court in London, and his release at Stansted Airport.
Wife Stella regularly updated followers about the course of flight VJ199. In
coverage posted of his arrival at the federal court house in Saipan, she
pondered “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum
after years of sensory depravation and the four walls” of his Belmarsh cell.
As for the plea
deal itself, it is hard to fault it from the emotional and personal perspective
of Assange and his family. He was ailing and being subjected to a slow
execution by judicial process. It was also the one hook upon which the DOJ, and
the Biden administration, might move on. This being an election year in the US,
the last thing President Biden wanted was a haunting reminder of this nasty
saga of political persecution hovering over freedom land’s virtues.
There was
another, rather more sordid angle, and one that the DOJ had to have kept in
mind in thinning the charge sheet: a proper Assange trial would have seen the
murderous fantasies of the CIA regarding the publisher subject to scrutiny.
These included various possible measures: abduction, rendition, even
assassination, points thoroughly explored in a Yahoo News contribution in
September 2021.
One of the
authors of the piece, Zach Dorfman, posted a salient reminder as news of the
plea deal filtered through that many officials during the Trump administration,
even harsh critics of Assange, “thought [CIA Director Mike] Pompeo’s
extraordinary rendition plots foolhardy in the extreme, and probably illegal.
They also – critically – thought it might harm Assange’s prosecution.” Were
Pompeo’s stratagems to come to light, “it would make the discovery process
nightmarish for the prosecution, should Assange ever see trial.”
From the
perspective of publishers, journalists and scribblers keen to keep the powerful
accountable, the plea must be seen as enormously troubling. It ultimately goes
to the brutal exercise of US extraterritorial power against any publisher,
irrespective of outlet and irrespective of nationality. While the legal freight
and prosecutorial heaviness of the charges was reduced dramatically (62 months
seems sweetly less imposing than 175 years), the measure extracts a pound of
flesh from the fourth estate. It signals that the United States can and will
seek out those who obtain and publish national security information that they
would rather keep under wraps under spurious notions of “harm”.
Assange’s
conviction also shores up the crude narrative adopted from the moment WikiLeaks
began publishing US national security and diplomatic files: such activities
could not be seen as journalistic, despite their role in informing press
commentary or exposing the venal side of power through leaks.
From the lead
prosecuting attorney Gordon Kromberg to such British judges as Vanessa
Baraitser; from the national security commentariat lodged in the media stable
to any number of politicians, including the late California Democrat Dianne
Feinstein to the current President Joe Biden, Assange was not of the fourth
estate and deserved his mobbing. He gave the game away. He pilfered and stole
the secrets of empire.
To that end, the
plea deal makes a mockery of arguments and effusive declarations that the
arrangement is somehow a victory for press freedom. It suggests the opposite:
that anyone publishing US national security information by a leaker or
whistleblower is imperilled. While the point was never tested in court, non-US
publishers may be unable to avail themselves of the free speech protections of
the First Amendment. The Espionage Act, for the first time in history, has been
given a global, tentacular reach, made a weapon against publishers outside the
United States, paving the way for future prosecutions.
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