Biden Wants To Avoid a First Amendment Showdown Over WikiLeaks

U.S. prosecutors are looking to wriggle out of an espionage trial for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a deal to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to avoid espionage charges and instead plead guilty to the misdemeanor of mishandling classified data. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the talks between U.S. authorities and Assange's lawyers on Wednesday. The independent outlet Consortium News then confirmed that it had learned the same details "off the record" several months ago.

Assange has been detained in Britain for five years awaiting extradition, and the Journal reported that he "would likely be free to leave prison shortly after any deal was concluded" due to time served.

Although it's not a done deal, the proposal is good news for the First Amendment, because it avoids setting a precedent that allows the U.S. government to treat journalists as spies.

Attorney General Merrick Garland still has to sign off on any deal, according to the Journal. And Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton told Consortium News that Assange is dead-set against signing a deal that would require him to come to the United States, due to worries that the U.S. government could change the terms at the last minute.

After the news broke, Assange's lawyer Barry J. Pollack stated, "We have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case." Pollack didn't deny that negotiations were happening, and accusing the other side of being unserious could be a negotiating tactic.

But both sides have a strong incentive to avoid a trial. In addition to saving Assange from significant jail time, a plea deal could allow the Biden administration to wriggle out of a self-inflicted political conundrum.

WikiLeaks became a thorn in the U.S. government's side in the early 2010s when it published classified data provided by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, including a database of U.S. diplomatic cables and a video of a U.S. Army helicopter gunning down a news crew in Iraq.

The Obama administration prosecuted Manning but decided not to prosecute Assange because of the "New York Times problem." Even though WikiLeaks is not a traditional newspaper, its activities are legally not so different from The New York Times and other news organizations, which often publish stories based on leaked classified information.

Indeed, Assange partnered with the Times, The Guardian, and other international outlets for the "Cablegate" leaks. When the Trump administration finally decided to prosecute Assange for espionage in 2019, the Times editorial board called the case a weapon "aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment."

Because of Assange's case, a bipartisan group in Congress is pushing for a law to overhaul the Espionage Act completely.

With a misdemeanor plea deal, prosecutors could avoid a fight over the Espionage Act and the First Amendment, without looking like the Biden administration backed down. As the Journal put it, putting Assange on trial "would throw a political hot potato into the lap of the Biden administration."

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Journalists aren’t special people. Stop acting like they are.

[Social Justice is neither]

Helmet wearing, window lickers are special just like journalists.

[VinniUSMC]

You misspelled "foreign journalist and accomplice to a traitor."

[TLoro]

They are when they reveal that the government accidentally killed your mother and covered it up.

[Liberty_Belle]

So ... we gonna just let people steal / publish military secrets, deployments, etc, threatening the lives of our armed services personnel ?

[Don't look at me!]

Has that actually happened?

[I…….. Fudd]

A number of times over the years. Going back at least as far as that Jack Anderson piece in the 70’s.

[KARtikeya]

Jack Anderson was Mormon so of course he’d be a traitor.

[Truthfulness]

Jack Anderson did nothing wrong--let go of your bigotry.

[KARtikeya]

Are you a Mormon?

[jimc5499]

Hilary, Biden......

[Social Justice is neither]

That is the severity of charge that would justify the entirety of the regime jihad against him. Could you imagine being imprisoned for years let alone the added years trapped in a consulate, your name dragged through the mud worldwide for a misdemeanor?

[I…….. Fudd]

Obama let Bradley Manning off the hook.

[Stuck in California]

Yup. He was the one who stole the secrets and delivered them to a foreign agent. He was the one who was sworn to protect the information. And he was an American citizen and a service member (in a volunteer armed forces).

Assange is a foreign national, from a nation we are not at war with, who published information. Not sworn to protect information, not under the laws of the US, not nearly as cut and dry.

And Manning got a taxpayer-paid sex change out of the deal, too.

[mad.casual]

Not just sworn to protect the information, but sworn to defend his fellow soldiers.

Again, the idea that Judge Coleman ruling that an illegal immigrant has 2A rights is some sort of virtuous, principled cleaving to human rights and not something between selective prosecution and judicial activism/lawfare is a joke, a retarded joke if made in earnest.

[Liberty_Belle]

S(he) is military … how’d they avoid getting a “lead supplement” for that ?

Maybe I’m wrong, don’t we “capital punishment” people for treason ?

[I…….. Fudd]

Manning would hav been executed by firing squad if I had my way. So would a lot of leftists who hav e engaged in obviously treasonous behavior. Or in permanent solitary at a SuperMax facility at a a minimum.

[I…….. Fudd]

That’s true. Can’t exactly put Assange on trial for treason, since he has no legal requirement to show any loyal to the US. Manning got what he deserved and shouldn’t hav been pardoned.

Although the better scenario would have been to never allow someone as unstable as Manning to join the military in the first place.

[Stuck in California]

Yeah, I have major problems with Manning from one end to the other of the saga. But you're right, nutjobs like that getting wholesale access to intelligence assets like that is a major breakdown in the Army as well.

Look at its wiki page and they list it as "whistleblower", which is horseshit. There was no selective release of something that was being covered up, that should have been released officially. It was wholesale release of military data, unedited, unfocused. During a time of war, that's just a massive propaganda bonanza for the people killing your fellow servicemembers.

This is from me, a very information should be free guy. Dude made an oath entirely voluntarily, broke it, so fuck him. But how the fuck did that guy get that job in the Army in the first place?

[I…….. Fudd]

Army would be better off short handed than with unstable treasonous weirdos like this in uniform. And I say that as an Army vet who served in wartime. No fucking way would I want that fruitcake anywhere near me in a possible combat scenario.

[TLoro]

Imagine how many members of the New York Times and Fox News could be prosecuted.

[damikesc]

Steal and publish are not the same thing.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

I really don’t care if the surveillance state is inconvenienced.

Fuck em.

[CaptainJack]

I should sure as hell hope so.

Dude never stepped foot in the US, and merely published what others had leaked. And in the process exposed numerous civil rights violations by the US Federal govt.

We need more of that, not less.

[Yuno Hoo]

putting Assange on trial "would throw another political hot potato into the lap of the Biden administration."

FTFY

[mad.casual]

Although it’s not a done deal, the proposal is good news for the First Amendment, because it avoids setting a precedent that allows the U.S. government to treat journalists as spies.

LOL. The 1A got mostly peacefully ass raped and that’s a good thing because the ass raping could’ve been a lot worse.

He’s been in a British prison for 5 yrs. for what the State knows it can’t charge as more than a misdemeanor.

Once again, mass media encourages a democratic administration to pull its hair and smack it’s ass while Reason sits in the corner saying, “That’s hawt.”

[VULGAR MADMAN]

That’s a good way to put it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

He's only in prison because 12 years ago he decided to jump bail and spend the next seven years holed up in a foreign embassy.

The Espionage Act case against Assange is weak and should be dropped, but he's a computer hacker and (allegedly) participated in Manning's hacking, so he still deserves to go on trial for that. I just hope he doesn't get "credit for time served" for when he was in the Ecuadorean embassy--voluntarily.

[Truthfulness]

Assange should never have gotten into bail in the first place. He never should've been arrested to begin with.

Stop defending the government's blatant violation of the 1st Amendment.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

He was detained in the UK pursuant to an international warrant issued by Sweden. Then he jumped bail in the UK. [Seven years "on the run" pass...] He was arrested for jumping bail in the UK. He is in jail in the UK.

All of that was perfectly in-line with ordinary, existing laws in the UK. But you say the UK should never have arrested him, "because reasons"...

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Hmm. Charged under that century old act of dubious constitutionality The Espionage Act that congress wants to revise to exempt the press. Trying to remember who else has been charged under that act recently. Oh that's right. The only person on the planet with constitutional authority to determine what is and is not classified. Cool that Reason finally remembered Assange after all of these years.

[Kungpowderfinger]

Since there’s an election coming:

It’s important for the Biden Administration to pretend that they’re not literally the surveillance state

and

It’s important for Reason to support the Biden campaign

Thus I’ll call bullshit on any claims in this article, except for maybe “Assange is dead-set against signing a deal that would require him to come to the United States, due to worries that the U.S. government could change the terms at the last minute”

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Meaning, if the U.S. government changes. It was a Trump Administration which decided to prosecute him in the first place, so if I were Assange, I'd be worried about a future President Trump honoring any deal made by the previous administration, too.

[Truthfulness]

Assange's legal issues predated the Trump administration. You're blaming the wrong people.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You're very confusedfulness. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm speculating about what Assange might be worried about right now.

Logically, if the president who initially indicted you is possibly going to return to power (and that president has a solid history of violating legal norms and gleefully un-doing all the accomplishments of his predecessor, sometimes only because they [/i]were[/i] the accomplishments of his predecessor), you'd probably want some reassurance that the "deal" you struck with the current Administration would be honored.

I think Assange has done enough time for the crimes he's likely committed, so I would support such a deal at this point. I just don't want Assange mischaracterized as some sort of free speech martyr, when 90% of his "suffering" has been self-imposed.

[John C. Randolph]

If Assange had any reason to believe he'd get a fair trial in the USA, it would have made sense to waive extradition and come here five years ago. He's fighting it because he expects, entirely reasonably, that he'll get Epsteined if the spooks get their hands on him.

-jcr

[I…….. Fudd]

That’s not an unreasonable concern these days.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Don't you mean 12 years ago? He didn't spend seven years in a London embassy for kicks.

[Truthfulness]

He was not imprisoned until five years ago.

[Miss Ann Thrope (She/It)]

Why can't Assange just admit to being a kindly old man with a bad memory?

[I…….. Fudd]

Won’t work. He doesn’t have the right letter after his name.

[Kary Love]

The Espionage Act ought apply to government actors FIRST, such as Trump and Biden, who took government jobs and agreed to the law applying to them. Applying it to those who did not so agree, such as first amendment actors like Assange, who attempted to inform "We the People" of government wrongdoing, so it could be corrected as required by law, negates informed voting and self-governance by the people whom demand a "government of law, not men." Secret government invites abuse and makes impossible correctives applied by an informed people at the ballot box. It negates informed self-government and substitutes government by deception.

[I…….. Fudd]

It doesn’t. That’s what impeachment is for.