House Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA) have sent a letter to President Biden urging him to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to send a message that Biden will “not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.”
“We write, first, to express our appreciation for your administration’s decision last spring to facilitate a resolution of the criminal case against publisher Julian Assange and to withdraw the related extradition request that had been pending in the United Kingdom,” Massie and McGovern wrote in the letter dated November 1, which was first made public on Tuesday.
Assange was freed in a plea deal earlier this year after spending more than five years in London’s Belmarsh Prison while battling a US extradition request. He was indicted by the Trump administration in 2019 for exposing US war crimes by publishing classified documents leaked to WikiLeaks by former Army Private Chelsea Manning in 2010.
Under the indictment, Assange could have faced up to 175 years in prison in the US for publishing the documents, a standard journalistic practice. While the plea deal set him free, it required him to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act.
“The terms of Mr. Assange’s plea agreement have now set a precedent that greatly deepens our concern,” Massie and McGovern said. “A review of prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes clear that Mr. Assange’s case is the first time the Act has been deployed against a publisher.”
The lawmakers pointed to comments from Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who said, “While we welcome the end of his detention, the US’s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers.”
Massie and McGovern concluded the letter by saying, “We therefore urge you to consider issuing a pardon for Mr. Assange. A pardon would remove the precedent set by the plea and send a clear message that the US government under your leadership will not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.”
According to Fox News, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, is heading to Washington in January to push for a pardon before Biden leaves office. Click here to add your name to an open letter calling on Biden to pardon the WikiLeaks founder.
Yes! Edward Snowden too.
Trump should do it if Biden won’t.
Trump is just as likely to restart the prosecution and pressure Australia to extradite Assange to the US.
Maybe he’s now improved
Sure.
“Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
And maybe I’m a Chinese pilot.
Hmm, is that a confession? Maybe instead of us all being Russian we’re actually Chinese peasants talking with one another, tricking the bourgeois Americans.
And maybe if versed in Americana pop culture you’d get that.
You found me out. I’m unplugged.
What a shame.
A pardon would not affect Assange much, because he is free, as for future journalists, the US will end up prosecuting them anyway.
I suppose precedent is now established. (I’m being both silly and serious bc precedent also suggests he shouldn’t have been found guilty.)
He was not found guilty, he plead guilty. It is called admitting you broke the law.
It’s just lawfare. It was under duress I suppose is how you’d explain it to some believer in the US system.
If a journalists breaks US law than they should be prosecuted. Being a journalists does not make one exempt from the law.
Reporting on US government crimes is NOT a crime, you can look that one up. Being a foreign journalist reporting on US government crimes from abroad is not a crime. Assange is not a US citizen, was never based in the US, and was reporting on leaks brought to his attention by US government personnel sickened by what the US government is doing. Did the leakers break the law? Not in case the disclosure involve wrongdoing by the US government, since this kind of information cannot be classified by law, US federal law.
Right on!!!
Especially absurd when all the major media used the same material after Wikileaks, and they were not prosecuted.
And no one in the U.S. occupation force has been prosecuted for the crimes exposed by Bradley Manning, who was only following his duty in exposing illegal acts.
That's Chelsea Manning.
Both of them.
They haven't been using that deadname for over a decade.
“…not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.”
Anymore.
”Freedom of Speech! Freedom of the Press!”
Truth and honesty are essential to our democratic processes!
https://www.action.assangecampaign.org/donate
If only Trump had picked Massie to be VP. And then Mother Nature did the rest.
Amen!
"…send a message that Biden will “not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.""
Yes, let Biden put some daylight between himself and Trump on this issue.
But it would be a farce. Trump and Biden see eye to eye on this issue.
”Blessed are the Peace Makers!”
They are the truth tellers!
"urging" Yes, that'll do it. We can urge the supermarket to give us free groceries, we can urge lingerie models to spend the weekend in mom's basement. This is the magical thinking of behind the bell curve children.
Only one person can do it. You can't make them. What else would you do but 'ask', 'urge', etc.? You're the one talking like a child, Curveball.
“You can’t make them.” You say it yourself. No one who is allowed to become US president would dream of pardoning Assange. No one who is allowed to become POTUS is going to do anything decent, and any reliance upon same is a waste of time, energy and resources. Worse, this nonsense legitimizes the power of the office and the US government by asking for favors at the end of a term like today is the day of the wedding of his only daughter. Enjoy kissing the ring.
Agree, I do not condone his history of computer hacking, but he has suffered enough!
“To forgive is divine…”
They should just urge him to leave – immediately. We ceased having a functioning president years ago.
The word “function” is subjective.
Assange pleaded guilty of the crime. He did the time and now he is a free man. And since Assange has a long history of breaking the law and being suspects in other crimes, it is just a matter of time before he is arrested again.