Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) will bring Gabriel Shipton, the brother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to President Biden’s State of the Union address this Thursday night.
“President Biden will be looking at Julian Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, in the House gallery Thursday night as Biden delivers the State of the Union,” Massie wrote on X.
Bringing Shipton as his guest is part of Massie’s strategy to pressure Biden to drop the charges against Assange, who is facing up to 175 years in prison if extradited and convicted in the US for exposing US war crimes by publishing documents obtained by a source, a standard journalistic practice.
“The US government’s ongoing effort to prosecute Julian Assange threatens the First Amendment rights of Americans and should be opposed,” Massie told The Courier Journal.
“During his term in office, I asked President Trump to pardon Mr. Assange, and I was disappointed by his failure to do so. President Biden should stop seeking Assange’s extradition and should instead drop the criminal charges currently being pursued by the Department of Justice,” he added.
Assange, an Australian citizen, has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison since the Trump administration indicted him under the Espionage Act in 2019. Last month, Assange’s legal team presented its case for an appeal to the UK home secretary’s decision to extradite Assange to the US, and a decision on whether or not he can appeal is expected to happen soon.
The defense team introduced new evidence, including a bombshell report from Yahoo News that revealed the CIA, under Mike Pompeo at the time, considered kidnapping and even discussed assassinating Assange over WikiLeaks publishing detailed the CIA’s hacking tools, known as Vault 7.
WikiLeaks and Assange supporters are asking Americans to put pressure on Congress to oppose the extradition. Americans can call their House representatives to support H.Res.934, a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that calls for the US to drop the charges against Assange.
Click here to find your representative, or call the House switchboard operator at (202) 224-3121. Tell them to support the resolution to protect the First Amendment and press freedom.
Thomas Massie is a genuine American Patriot.
Eh. This is a good move and Massie has made a number of other good moves. He has also made plenty of weird and bizarre ones.
He’s a grandstander and sometimes a clown and a jerk.
This is an excellent cause to grandstand about.
Yes, I said this is a good move. My response was to Warren’s characterization of Massie as a “genuine American Patriot.”
So what did he do?
Massie has taken plenty of positions I agree with and some that I think are dumb and reactionary. Consistently, whatever point or position he’s advocating for, he tends to find the most theatrical way to promote it and to push himself into the spotlight. Fairly often, he comes off as clownish and silly. I think he’s principled, but he’s an unrestrained self-promoter and we definitely don’t need more self-promoters in American politics.
His interview when Trump wanted to bomb Syria was excellent. He immediately called it!
Wow!
Of course I want Assange freed, but it should be Butcher Biden begging pardon of Julian. To have to accept anything from this polscum is degrading.
I doubt Biden can see beyond his teleprompter.
I doubt he knows who Julian Assange is.
DingDong the wicked Nuland is toast. The Lion has eaten its trainer & thw wheels have come lose. Only time will tell, but her Ukraine project has bcum a big Liability for the demented Biden!!!! Bye Bye ByeDone.
There’s been some suggestion that her sudden retirement was due to the Russian intercept of the German military threatening missile strikes on the Kerch Bridge.
That was her baby that just got aborted.
Will Rep. Thomas Massie pull the same stunt when Trump is the President? Of course not, because Trump will have him replaced in 2026. So old Massie is trying to get Biden to do the work so that he can blame Biden regardless of what Biden decides. If Biden drops the charges, Trump will blast Biden as weak on criminals. If Biden, does not drop the charges the then Massie will accuse Biden of being against a free press. In any case, a win for Trump and loss for Biden. The best part is that it was Trump idea to charge Assange in the first place.
Yes, it was. It was also Trump’s idea to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, give Kiev javelin anti-tank missiles, withdraw the U.S. from the INF Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty. And, oh, he withdrew from the JCPOA with Iran.
“It was also Trump’s idea to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem”
Ignorance is not bliss.
Trump’s idea to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem,
It was an act of Congress actually, Tump only approved it.
Just as well as it is the Capital of Palestine and we won’t have to move it again when Israel is finally off the map.
Trump approved it after others refused to. Trump decided to wedge his nose a little further up than his predecessors.
Or just maybe Trump believes an act of Congress should be respected.
Jesus Christ dude, you don’t even believe that.
Just saying he did not do this on his own.
Congress tried to be cute and pretend to vote to move the embassy but realizing such a thing would destabilize the region they included an escape clause for who was ever President to suspend the act so they could have it both ways.
Trump called their bluff.
That’s why the establishment hates him and Americans love him. 🇺🇸
“That’s why the establishment hates him and Americans love him.”
As of March 4’s Morning Consult favorability poll, less than half of Americans even like him, and about 20% of Republicans dislike him.
The Great Silent Majority will be consulted next November – then we’ll know.
Consulting the non-existent does not produce knowledge.
They were consulted in ‘16 and they schooled the know it alls then.. And how!
Time for another lesson for slow learners.
During his speech at the religious convention in Nashville, Trump told the audience about how he moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, which saw the U.S. officially recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital.
While retelling the story, Trump described how “I did it, and therefore Israel became the capital, and it was a big thing.”
That’s clearly not the case, or he wouldn’t have stolen funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to build his Berlin Wall replica after Congress declined to give him the money three times.
That’s not stealing. That’s initiative… Another reason we The People love him.
According to the US Constitution, it’s stealing. “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
Sounds like it was a slam dunk case for impeachment. Too bad you didn’t speak up sooner.
Ya snooze ya lose.
Yes, it was a slam dunk case for impeachment.
I “spoke up” when it happened. And again later.
But Congress impeaches for what it finds politically convenient, not for actual high crimes and misdemeanors. Even when Trump publicly confessed — bragged about — three of them in relation to the “perfect” Ukraine phone call, the impeachment wasn’t about those publicly confessed crimes.
They would impeach him for any flimsy case.. This one doesn’t even reach that low standard.
If by “this one” you mean his misappropriation of funds for a use that Congress had explicitly refused multiple times, that would have been a rock solid case. But he still wouldn’t have been convicted, because impeachment is always a partisan/political thing, never a legal/constitutional thing. Otherwise no president would last more than a few months.
Impeachment doesn’t require a conviction. Conviction requires impeachment…
Case dismissed.
You love him because he loves your emperor, Midget Putin.
So you didn’t want the Javelins in Ukraine so Russia can crush Ukraine?
We know you who you support here.
you are such a US Patriot. lol
That’s not funny. What’s funny is we ignore all the war criminals we have running around, and prosecute Assange via a government entity called, “the Department of Justice!” Dude! That’s so good!
Massie has set himself up well or ‘28.
When the dust settles and the blood dries it’s going to be a whole new world.
For president in 2028? Unlikely. The last time a president was elected out of the House of Representatives was 1880.
Yet how often have we had a businessman without holding prior public office elected to the Presidency?
The times they are a changin.
He’s the first one to be elected to the presidency who had never held elective office.
As for being a “businessman,” not so much. He’s spent his life running scams that have made him less money than if he’d just stuck his inheritance in an indexed mutual fund.
Maybe he’s not it it for the money. Ever think of that?
In that case, he’s not a “businessman.”
His business is building buildings. That is what he does.
He just rents out the Trump name nowadays to others due to his habit of not paying the workers who built his own building’s
The workers get paid, it’s the contractors ( their bosses) that get stiffed when they do shoddy work ot it’s not up to spec.
You’re correct that he’s a statesman now.
Odd you’d consider that a compliment, though.
It is compared with being a politician.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d413119413a0584e8cd9b0c8ce9d611eab10447db5c16b896d42873936e3daac.jpg
Politicians are common.. Statesmen are rare.
The difference between a politician and a statesman is like the difference between a 3-Card Monte scammer and a guy who sells you oceanfront property in Manhattan. Manhattan, Kansas.
He’s a statesman now.
Massie should introduce Assange’s brother to the man who made it all possible.
President Donald Trump successfully pressured, or to put it more accurately bribed, Ecuador’s new president, Lenin Moreno, to expel Assange from its embassy in London. Moreno also expunged Assange’s Ecuadoran citizenship. In return, the U.S. saw to it that Ecuador got a much-needed loan from the International Monetary Fund, and improved trade deals. Ecuador would realign its foreign policy to meet U.S. terms, such as recognizing Juan Guadió as the self-declared president of Venezuela, and have Ecuador’s troops trained by the U.S.
Moreno also met with Trump in Washington D.C. Trump and about what he termed this “great meeting,” said, “We’re working on military options including the purchase of a lot of our military equipment.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/12/the-tortured-trial-of-julian-assange/
Massie should change Parties, join the Libertarian Party and work on others in Congress who are Constitutional Patriots, to do the same. We need to encourage those in the R/D Parties, willing to stand up to the money, lobbyist, etc. in Congress, to LEAVE and give Americans strong Third Party Candidates. Why don’t we have a Massie/Paul Ticket now? The idea that our Government would accuse a NON-Citizen of treason, sedition, espionage, etc. makes no sense to me, especially when the information was given to him, because he is a Journalist? You would think, Assange would have to at least be a Citizen of America, to be charged with such crimes. Assange has NO duty to be LOYAL to America, that is the job of Americans. Israel today is killing journalist intentionally, America is helping them do it, just what kind of people have we become? The problem we have is that the Journalist with NO ethics thrive and those who tell the truth are TARGETS!
I like Thomas Massie (R-KY) for President better than either of the candidates. It is not true that we are unable to find anyone better to run.
Here is a likely scenario:
Trump gets nominated and will surge in polls… Biden would notice this and one month before election he stops shipping arms to Israel and/or push for a ceasefire…! Biden would then attract the uncommitted votes and beats Trump on election…! By that time the ceasefire would automatically ends and Biden starts shipping arms to Israel again….!
One month before the election Genocide Joe should be sitting a wheelchair with a blanket and non-stop ice cream shoveled his way. He’ll still think he’s president.
175 Years in Prison…! Was this an algebra miscalculation or the prosecutors and judges think Assange will live more than 175 years…?!!!
This film is coming out soon about Julian Assange. They are trying to get people to support it:
https://www.thetrustfall.org/
Well, If he dies, it’ll be just normal just like Navalny. Right?
Let’s get used to it.
But if we don’t want to be hypocrites, let’s be fcking honest about who we support.
Meh, this is anti US wars, never mind.