Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Deserves Medal of Freedom, Not Indictment

Journalist Martin Sieff asked my two cents on reports that the Trump administration may indict Julian Assange. Here’s my thoughts from his article this morning:

Libertarian author and historian James Bovard told Sputnik that Assange should be praised, not prosecuted, for the services WikiLeaks has provided.

“Instead of a criminal indictment, Assange deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Bovard said. “He did more to invigorate American democracy last year than the Washington Post and the New York Times combined.”

Bovard also warned that sending Assange to prison would set a terrible precedent and would have dire implications for the future of freedom of speech and open government in the United States.

“Any prosecution of Assange would ultimately rest on a presumed divine right for the federal government to deceive the American people. Assange is a heretic to people who believe presidents have a right to be trusted,” Bovard claimed.

“The only CIA official Obama’s Justice Department prosecuted for the torture scandal was John Kiriakou, a courageous whistleblower who publicly admitted that the CIA used waterboarding,” Bovard recalled. “The torturers themselves laughed all the way to New York publishing houses to collect fat advances for their memoirs.”