Project Veritas released this week a full, unedited audio tape of an August 26, 2011, hour-and-a-quarter-long phone call between Julian Assange and State Department attorney Cliff Johnson. In the call, held at Assange’s request, Assange warned the State Department that he had reliable indications that a former WikiLeaks employee, who had been fired by Assange, was preparing to release unredacted classified U.S. diplomatic cables taken from WikiLeaks, which might compromise some Americans. Assange offered to cooperate with the State Department on measures that could perhaps block the leak of the documents or at least minimize any damaging effect their release might engender, and he suggested the State Department want to warn some of its people who might be affected.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson confirmed in an exclusive interview with RT this morning that the Project Veritas tape is “authentic,” and a transcript of the tape had been submitted last September to the British court hearing the U.S. request for Assange’s extradition. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfZQcV-frnY&feature=youtu.be]
The recording, now being widely circulated by Edward Snowden and others, amounts to “absolutely overwhelming evidence against the U.S. case in its entirety,” Hfransson said. The State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, never got back to Assange on his offer to help. The Department of Justice is seeking Assange’s extradition to the United States to face trial on espionage charges on the included grounds that he was irresponsible and put U.S. lives at risk; this recording, reveals that Assange instead sought to get the State Department to act to stop the leaks in advance, and they did nothing.
