Please, oh please, not fecal feces! He must be really crazy. And LOL @ Uncle Putie talking about journalistic freedom. I guess he is the arbiter of which ones get shut down, which ones get jailed and which ones get mysteriously killed.
Trump loves WikiLeaks ... a known enemy of our country. The tales that Assange will tell. Mueller might want to write an addendum to his report.
Jonathan Turley says this case might be one of the most important in history: While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has labeled Assange a “fraud,” “coward,” and “enemy,” a strong argument can be made that he was acting as either a whistleblower or journalist. However, whistleblower defenses are quite limited in national security cases. The status as a journalist has been contested by some and federal law actually does not contain an exemption for the possession or distribution of classified information. However, there is a strong gravitational pull for constitutional protection. This would set up a serious first amendment fight. Putting aside the issue of journalistic defenses, an indictment under the Espionage Act would be quite challenging for the government absent some new evidence establishing a nexus and intent. I have handled first amendment and national security cases and I would call the Assange arrest the most anticipated case of my generation in defining the outside boundaries of those areas. Ironically, I just spoke in Utah on the changing role and realities of the U.S. media. This could prove one of the most important cases in history. https://jonathanturley.org/2019/04/11/and-so-it-begins-assange-arrested/
Fact check: Did Trump really mention WikiLeaks over 160 times in the last month of the election cycle? https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ump-really-mention-wikileaks-over-160-times-/
Well, they will put Assange in a Super Max so nobody can hear from again. He did a great service to people world wide with much truthful real information about how things operate. Ecuador probably gets a visit by Trump and some money. We can hope that wikileaks without Assange keeps reporting important stuff that folks should know and that the worldwide elite and the government they control want to keep hidden.
NPR had a testy interview with Glen Greenwald on this case. Testiness aside, Greenwald's argument is that the only thing Assange did in the Manning case to count as conspiracy was to encourage his source to get more material, which he says is normal journalistic practice. Now it sounds like the government is alleging he did more than encourage. But I'm not sure this 'normal journalistic practice' of encouraging sources to engage in more illegal activity is something we want to protect anyway. Sounds like conspiracy to me to make an implicit or explicit promise to publish if you'll just hack a govt database and steal classified documents.
WikiLeaks is the case in point of Trump putting himself ahead of country. One would have to think that Trump is sweating bullets over what Assange might have to say about communicating with Manafort and Stone. Assange helped the Trump campaign since Assange hated Hillary Clinton and feared her Presidency. For Assange's efforts (which Trump loved), the Trump lead government will throw Assange's ass into an American jail for the rest of his life. You gotta think that this bird is going to sing. Don't be surprised to see Assange sent straight to Gitmo.
This really isn't a whistle blower case. Assange will try like hell to paint it as a case of him being the benevolent whistle blower, but he had motivations and was reckless. Any ruling by the Supreme Court needs to be VERY narrowly tailored.
This. It is actually fairly complicated from a legal perspective, and the ruling (this will go to the SC) will be in the details of what exactly happened. Assange will depict himself as a whistle blower, but it isn't cut and dry either way. Also, the black cloud that hangs over Assange that shouldn't (but will) influence any ruling is his meddling in the 2016 election and his relationship with Russia.
Eh, sing, don't sing. I don't really care. He's an enemy of the United States and I'll be happy if we can get a conviction. Don't know if the DOJ has a case or not, and don't care much about the legal machinations anyway. He did blow the whistle on some malfeasance in our government, but he has not been a responsible agent for accountability. Whistleblowers do what they do to protect their institutions from corruption. Assange wasn't trying to protect the US. I have no need for whistleblowers who want to hurt me. So eff him. I'll rely on real journalists with a code of ethics to provide my transparency, thanks.
