In an outrageous assault on the freedom of the press, the U.S. government is attempting to extradite Julian Assange from England to stand trial in the notorious rocket docket of Alexandria, VA. The extradition hearing is scheduled to last 3-4 weeks. The U.S. government issued a superseding indictment, with the same charges but different evidence, refocusing the case upon a conspiracy to commit “computer intrusion.” The new evidence centers upon two FBI informants and their claims about Assange encouraging the hacking of bank records in Iceland. (This is added to the earlier charge that Assange helped Chelsea Manning devise hack into classified materials.) The U.S. prosecuting attorney, James Lewis, has attempted to narrow the case, re-packaging it as a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, and to downplay Assange’s role as an opponent of war crimes and the publishing of classified material, with its attendant First Amendment issues.
Lewis alleged to the extradition judge Vanessa Baraitser that Assange was only being charged on the few documents that included the names of informants, and not for all the documents about torture in Iraq and Guantanamo, etc. Assange yelled from his glass cage, “Nonsense!” Lauria explained that, while there is a law against publishing the names of agents, there is no such law regarding informants. Lewis’s somewhat tortured construction seems to be that the publishing of informant names is actually publishing secret information, which can be illegal under the Espionage Act. Key defense witness Trevor Timm, of the Freedom of Press Foundation, seemed to undercut Lewis, by actually reading Lewis’s indictment, showing that Assange indeed is being charged with receiving and possessing classified information — not merely with the “information” of the informants’ names. Lewis had attempted to dismiss all testimony of Assange’s journalistic role — e.g, from a lawyer who had defended Guantanamo prisoners — as irrelevant, as it did not apply to the limited documents with the names of informers; but Timm’s testimony impressed Lauria as having demolished that prosecution strategy.
Lauria noted the shallowness of the Chelsea Manning charge, as Manning had all the clearances to access the sought classified material, without Assange’s help. (Manning had simply sought Assange’s help in manufacturing a password that would sufficiently mask Manning’s activity.)
Otherwise, Lauria evaluated the Sept. 9 testimony by Timm as the highlight of the defense, where Assange’s journalistic activities were highlighted, the government’s claim that Assange was not a journalist knocked down, and the political nature of the trial demonstrated. Lewis had claimed that it wasn’t political unless a politician ordered a prosecution for electoral gain, citing Nixon. Timm made the case that a political trial was about policy, such as war policy. Lauria singled out from Assange’s court submissions Pompeo’s infamous allegation that WikiLeaks was a “hostile, non-state intelligence agency” that had to be destroyed.
The case was interrupted on Sept. 10, as a lawyer on Sept. 9 showed symptoms of COVID-19. The courtroom was cleansed, and the lawyer was tested. The result has apparently come back negative, and the proceedings will resume on Monday, Sept. 14.
For live updates, follow Kevin Gosztola, who, like Consortium News, is following the proceedings on video. He live-tweets the hearings: https://twitter.com/kgosztola/ and https://shadowproof.com/author/kgosztola/
Timm endorsed this reporting on his own testimony: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252488835/Assange-prosecution-would-put-journalists-around-the-world-at-risk
