Thursday, April 20, 2017

US Preparing Charges Against Julian Assange

By Jason Ditz - April 20, 2017 at 08:09PM

undefined

US officials have repeatedly vilified WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over the past several years, and intermittently called for his assassination, but just now appear to be nearing a decision to file charges against him, accusing him of crimes for involvement in the whistleblower organization.

What the charges might be remain a matter of speculation, as Assange’s lawyer says they’ve heard nothing from the Justice Department. CIA chief Mike Pompeo, however, suggested the charges could be speech related, insisting Assange doesn’t get “First Amendment freedoms” because he isn’t American.

This sudden interest in going after Assange is seen at least in part to be fueled by the Trump Administration’s effort to distance itself from WikiLeaks’ release of information harmful to the Clinton campaign in the 2016 election. Pompeo angrily attacked WikiLeaks just last week as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

Attorney General Jefferson Sessions insists that even though there haven’t been charges laid against Assange yet that arresting him is “a priority” for the Justice Department, citing the number of “quite serious” leaks WikiLeaks has been responsible for.

Even if the charges are filed, arresting Assange is likely to be a tricky matter, as he’s presently in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, and Ecuador provided him asylum specifically because of fears he’d be sent to the United States and subjected to torture.

The British government has so far not allowed Assange to leave the embassy to travel to Ecuador, citing Sweden’s interest in extraditing him for “questioning” related to a rape allegation. The concern has long been that if Assange was sent to Sweden he’d be quickly forwarded on to the US government, and would probably never be seen or heard from again.

Interestingly, President Trump publicly praised WikiLeaks during the campaign for releasing information about Hillary Clinton, even joking that WikiLeaks might be able to find Clinton’s “lost” emails. Having since turned against Russia in large part as a political effort to distance himself from allegations of election manipulation, Trump’s cabinet is also turning against WikiLeaks.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.

from Ron Paul Institute Peace and Prosperity Articles

via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment

Merchandise

Ron Paul America Cloud

Site Credits

Ron Paul America

is voluntarily affiliated with

Liberty Operations Group

______________________________

Site created, maintained and hosted by

Liberty Web Services

Tags

#TurnOnTheTruth 2008 2012 4th amendment 911 ACTION Afghanistan war Agency Aggression Principle al-Qaeda Alan Colmes Alert America America's Fault Americans antigun AR 15 assault weapon Audit Authoritarian bailouts Believe Big Brother big government bill of rights Blame blowback bubbles Bush Campaign for Liberty Career Politician Eric Cantor Central Bank Charity China churches collapse Collectivism Commission committee Compassion Congress Conservative constitution Crash dangerous person Democrat Democrats Donald Trump Donald Trump. Planned Parenthood drones economic Economy Edward Snowden End the Fed European Union Federal Reserve Floyd Bayne floyd bayne for congress force foreign interventionism free market free markets GOP Nominee GOP Presidential Debates Government Great Depression gun control House of Representatives housing bubble HR 1745 I like Ron Paul except on foreign policy If ye love wealth better than liberty IFTTT Individual Individualism Institute Irag Iran Iraq war ISIL ISIS Judge Andrew Napalitano libertarian Liberty Liberty Letters Liberty Report Lost mass Media meltdown metadata Micheal Moore Middle East Mitt Romney nap National Neocons New Ron Paul Ad New York Times Newsletters Newt Gingrich No Non non-interventionism NSA NSA Snooping Obama Overreach overthrow Patriot Act peace Peace and Prosperity politicians Pope Francis President Presidential Presidential Race programs prosperity Race Racist Racist Newsletters Rand Paul Read the Bills Act recessions redistribution of wealth refugee crisis Repeal Obamacare Report Republican Republican Nomination Republican Nominee Republicans Revolution Rick Santorum Rick Santorum Exposed Ron Ron Paul Ron Paul Institute Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity Ron Paul Institute Peace and Prosperity Articles Ron Paul Next Chapter Media Channel Ron Paul Racist Newsletters ron paul's foreign policy Ronald Reagan ronpaulchannel.com ronpaulinstitute.org Rosa DeLauro russia Samuel Adams Saudi Arabia Second Amendment Security Senate Senator September 11th attacks Show Soviet Spying stimulate Stock Market surveillance Syria tech bubble terrorist The the Fed the poor US US foreign policy Us troops USA Freedom Act Virginia Virginia Republican Primary voluntarism. Liberty Voluntary Warner Warning warrantless wiretaps YouTube