Julian Assange to Plead to One Count of Espionage Act on Way Back to Australia
Julian Assange has reached a plea deal.
He’ll plead to one felony count of violating the Espionage Act, a count that combines conspiring to obtain and disclose Secret documents. The Information covers just 2009 to 2011, so leaves out four years of the charged CFAA conspiracy and his far worse conduct after 2015.
He’ll plead guilty on Wednesday morning in the North Marianas Island, on his way back to Australia.
This plea gets Assange little more than a way to avoid US trial (and that’s before we see the Statement of Offense). It still charges a foreigner with violating the Espionage Act, the key thing journalists fought to avoid. It’s not clear if it immunizes anyone else.
DOJ could have built a felony plea around the charged hacking conspiracy, to avoid such problems. But they chose not to.
Update: I’ve corrected the description of the conspiracy, above. The Statement of Offense may do some interesting things in describing how Assange chose to disclose these documents, including mentioning Assange’s preferential sharing of them with Israel Shamir.
Lol. But it was espionage, wasn’t it? At least you pointed that out.
The could have pled him out to 371 CFAA, gotten their felony, and avoided the precedent journalists are trying to avoid. But did not.
No, I think DOJ picked the right one. I think you know that as well. Sometimes there is a thin line, but there is a line. Thank you for approving my last comment.
It will depend upon the deal that is docketed, and also whether the judge accepts the plea. After Hunter Biden’s case was derailed, one can’t be certain of acceptance.
Meh, don’t worry about Hunter Biden. His case is an outlier you would never know or care about if his name was not Biden. Overall it means absolutely nothing in the justice system, only on the internet. This deal is already done, it is okay.
Google says Northern Marianas are commonwealth of the United states. Well, it isn’t Belmarsh.
Just the most convenient US District on the way to Oz.
Yes. Convenient. Funny how that can be as to pertinent federal jurisdictions.
Why does this timing seem seriously cringe given the US presidential election is only a few months off from now.
Australian amd UK political machinations also figure in the process. UK gov will be different in 10 days. Aussie Labor Party gov wants to put Assange to bed as an issue before it gets near its next election in first half of next year.
Did the congruence of the espionage charges with UK (and Aust) law play a role in charging decision?
IANAL and don’t know how CFAA would line up with UK/Aust’s legal landscape.
Excellent point about the UK and AU elections. I was going to reply to JVOJVOJVO that there are many factors which shaped this outcome but the elections are likely at the top of the list.
Counting down the minutes to Trump making this a campaign issue, promising a pardon — but whether it would be for services already rendered or future services we’d have to guess.
I’m not well versed in Commonwealth citizenship procedures and right of return, but I’m sure the Albanese Labour government ran out of reasons to keep Julian away.
Can the Aussies charge Julian under their version of the Espionage Act?
No need to charge him here (Aust.) following his plea deal.
Not sure there would be any reasonable basis for charges for the later egregious conduct since it occurred outside of Australia.
Australia’s parliament passed a resolution in February seeking an end to his extradition/prosecution. This is not without some weight.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-14/house-representatives-julian-assange-extradition-us-wikileaks/103468048
The plea deal avoids a further appeal hearing against his extradition in the UK’s Supreme Court that was scheduled for July.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/julian-assange-released-from-prison/104017664
Believe me, Assange’s travails have *zero* (statistically insignificant if you want to be picky) effect on UK’s sudden elections and I am certain on any others as well.
There’s a lot we won’t know for a few days — such as what is included in the Statement of Offense.
There’s little reason to think it has exclusively to do with the election (though if Trump wins he’s likely to pardon Assange).
But the driving issue is surely a mix of the appeal the UK granted him, which would add years to the extradition and make the 1A issues more prominent than they already area, and the tradeoff here for a guilty plea and no CIPA.
What makes you think he’ll pardon Assange given that he didn’t last time around?
He didn’t last time around because of the legal danger to himself by doing so.
If he has another opportunity, he won’t be worrying about ongoing legal risk and/or reelection.
Just one more example of why a second Trump presidency would be so unhinged. Nothing will stop him from acting on his narcissistic and dementia brained whims.
The number of times Trump pleasantly surprised me by not pardoning his apparent accomplices before he left office is quite large. Given that he is promising to pardon everyone who breached the Capitol on Jan 6, and could have pardoned before he left office but chose not to, makes me wonder whether he’s planning to be more efficiently awful on pardons in a second term, or just lying to people he doesn’t care about. Assange probably fits in the same category.
Now he has a good idea of the going rate for pardons, he can extract the most money/etc from people.
Yes, that is correct. FWIW, I also don’t think it had much, if anything whatsoever, to do with UK and/or AU elections. It had just run its course. But the ultimate determination was that of DOJ, because they alone held the extradition card. Not AU nor UK. And the US was going to win that battle in the long run, even given the strung out UK process.
Assange is just a useless object for punishment at this point in time. The real culprit for the bad behavior of the government was Dick Cheney, who was responsible for the knee-jerk reaction following 9-11, and his enabler, the dim-witted George W, who was so addled he could not react properly. Then, throw in all those other folks in the Bush Administration whose names I have conveniently forgotten as they were so deplorable. The damage was done to our national reputation and the political price has been paid, not to mention the deaths of secret agents who were compromised by Assange’s ego-maniacal hacking.
You haven’t been following EW’s years worth of critiques of Assange’s bad beheavior, have you.
Well, I have. Actually wrote a few. Assange is a cooked turkey. He will be “free” to be in the AU.
Congratulations to all the Assanginistas. If you think this is a win, you are poorly misinformed.
When I stated the above about Assange, I was expressing MY disgust about him, not excusing him from further punishment. After spending years and money trying to get him into this country for prosecution and failing to do do, and after his being holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy for years, as well as a British prison for a few more, and having generally wasted energy trying to punish him as others have been punished, I just think it’s time for our government to focus on something more worthy of our precious attention than this scumbag who pretended to be aiding journalism with his reckless release of ill-gotten information to which he was not privileged. He craves the attention. Let him cook in the Outback in obscurity and scorn by his fellow Aussies.
He has been and remains an ongoing human influence operation.
CNMI seems like a weird venue for this. Guam has an older Territorial Court, maybe they didn’t want that fool too close. Saipan is where Tom DeLay tripped over his own destiny however, so maybe a better choice for GOP accountability? Could be about the judges, exile him to the Outback where he belongs
By the way, I highly doubt Australia really wants Assange either. But, again, this has long been the operationally way out. For many interests.
Good point. At some point you need to flush the toilet, move on from the too clever attention seeking little twit. It’s not like the world doesn’t know he’s a self absorbed tool.
I have wondered if the four years spent in UK prison solely while fighting US extradition (not including the one year for jumping bail) would have counted anyway as time served for a US conviction.
Yes. They would have. And that’s part of the point. At some point, the cost of going to trial, including going through CIPA, isn’t worth it if you get a 62-month sentence w/o any of that problem.
Not sure there would be time served credit, at all, but all things considered DOJ was fine with it being done. And despite all the hyperbole, Assange was never going to Gitmo or any of the other garbage his apologists claimed. So, it is an okay result.
Just to be clear, would Assange’s time absconding be considered under any federal sentencing? Of course, about any pertinent factor could be. But mandatory time served, no. And not sure the First Step Act changes it.
Contra bmaz, not everyone in Australia wants Julian to stay away.
“Relentless lobbying and a garden party ambush: how Australia pushed for Julian Assange’s freedom. WikiLeaks founder’s release was culmination of years of behind-the-scenes diplomatic lobbying, which got a big boost when Albanese took office.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/26/julian-assange-return-australia-prison-release-albanese-government-lobbying-ntwnfb