American Conservative, June 26, 2024

Assange Is Free, But Feds’ War On Free Speech Continues

by James Bovard

After 1,900 days locked away in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange finally escaped this week and fled back towards his Australian homeland. His breakout was enabled by a shameless legal charade that was a far better choice than life in prison.

On Wednesday, Assange is scheduled to appear before a U.S. judge in the Northern Mariana Islands to enter a formal guilty plea to one charge of conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, “receiving and obtaining” secret documents, and “willfully communicating” them “to persons not entitled to receive them.” The Espionage Act is a World War I relic that presidents are increasingly using to suppress exposure of U.S. government crimes at home and abroad. No wonder so many press organizations championed Assange’s cause, since this guilty plea sets a precedent to target far more journalists in the future. As Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted, the Justice Department wanted Assange “convicted under the Espionage Act for acts of journalism, which would leave many reporters exposed to the same.”

Assange’s lawyers cut a deal to assure that he would never have to appear before a judge in the notorious federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, which is known for harshly punishing anyone accused of tarnishing the image of the U.S. government or its Deep-State agencies. The Justice Department stated in its announcement of the settlement that the Pacific Ocean–based site was chosen “in light of the defendant’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States to enter his guilty plea.” The only thing that would have been more appropriate than Assange appearing in a Northern Mariana federal courtroom is if his case was being adjudicated by the U.S. Space Force on Mars, since the rationales for prosecution are so far out of this world.

Assange has been in the federal crosshairs ever since his organization, Wikileaks, released scores of thousands of documents in 2010 exposing lies and atrocities regarding the Afghan and Iraq wars, thanks to leaks from Army Corporal Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.

Among other heroic achievements, Assange provoked some of America’s biggest political scoundrels to show their stripes. In 2010, Vice President Joe Biden denounced Assange as a “high tech terrorist.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bizarrely claimed that the disclosures were “not just an attack on America—it’s an attack on the international community,” and the leaks “tear at the fabric” of responsible government. Clinton never forgave Assange for exposing so many of her lies on foreign policy.

Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and labeled Assange a “fraud,” “coward,” and “enemy.” Pompeo declared, “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for.”

But “our great Constitution” never intended for Washington to keep endless secrets from the American people. Former Vice President Mike Pence on Monday denounced the Assange-DOJ settlement: “There should be no plea deals to avoid prison for anyone that endangers the security of our military or the national security of the United States. Ever.” But what about top government officials who deceive Americans to unjustifiably send U.S. troops into foreign combat? We’re still waiting for Pence to atone for his cheerleading for Bush’s Iraq War.

The Justice Department’s settlement with Assange is an example of how the Biden administration is marginally less odious than the Trump administration—at least on some issues. The Obama administration had considered indicting Assange but recognized that the legal case was both profoundly flawed and profoundly dangerous to free speech. Those impediments were no handicap for the Trump Justice Department to indict Assange. According to Yahoo News, “Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange…. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred ‘at the highest levels’ of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. ‘There seemed to be no boundaries.’”

The fixation on destroying Assange was no aberration for the Trump era. Trump endlessly howled about the Deep State while his appointees persecuted Assange, Edward Snowden, and Daniel Hale, who exposed the civilian carnage from Obama’s drone killing program. Trump’s Justice Department invoked state secrets to cover up Bush-era torture atrocities and to shroud CIA bankrolling of murderous Syrian terrorist groups (those mischievous “moderate” rebels).

Has Trump seen the error of his ways? When he spoke at the Libertarian Party national convention last month, Trump declared, “In the last year, I’ve been indicted by the government on 91 different things, so if I wasn’t a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now.” Trump wouldn’t have to become a libertarian to recognize the need to leash prosecutors and heartedly respect the First Amendment. But is Trump corrigible? 

If Trump gets re-elected and is serious about respecting freedom of the press, he could start by granting a full pardon to Assange, expunging his “get out of jail” guilty plea. Better yet, as I wrote in USA Today in 2018, Assange should receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Unless we presume politicians have a divine right to deceive the governed, America should honor individuals who expose federal crimes. As Assange declared, “If wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth.”