Will the Left Get Its Revenge on Assange?

[DonViejo]

A mysterious court filing hints the Wikileaks maestro, blamed by many for Hillary’s defeat, has already been secretly charged. But for what?

By JACK SHAFER November 17, 2018

Having conditioned the press corps to think that he loves nothing better than to spend his Fridays filing criminal indictments, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had Washington reporters fidgeting all week long in the expectation that Roger Stone or Jerome Corsi or someone else connected to the scandal would get slapped in the kisser with criminal charges. Late on Thursday, news of a criminal indictment did bring joy to the press, but it wasn't what they expected at all. News dribbled out that—thanks to a clip-and-paste flub into a court filing by federal prosecutors—international man of mystery and WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange stands secretly charged with something or other.

That something or other could be, take your pick, his role in 2010 in disseminating via WikiLeaks the diplomatic cables and other materials stolen by Chelsea Manning or for posting to his site the purloined Democratic Party emails in 2016. Or maybe both. Or who knows? The indictment was sealed in deference to the “needs of law enforcement,” the passage states, and “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity of the case.” The news galvanized First Amendment Twitter. Flush with its temporary restraining order victory in the Jim Acosta affair, it rose to defend Assange even before anybody—outside the Department of Justice, that is—knew what crimes he’d been charged with.

During his decade in the spotlight, Assange has hit the cardinal as well as the ordinal points on the public’s compass. He’s been lionized by the left as a truth-teller and savaged by the right as a traitor to the West. He’s cozied up to the Russians (his deputy helped ensconce whistleblower Edward Snowden safely in Moscow) but become a TV buddy of Fox News Channel talker Sean Hannity. Depending on his most recent performance, he’s denounced as a sociopath or celebrated as a savior. Who in the 21st century has forced so much sputtering indignation and flip-flopping? The prospect that he might soon appear in a U.S. courtroom and defend his deed is both chilling and thrilling to the journalists who have covered and sometimes abetted him.

The Assange indictment doesn’t appear to be the product of Mueller’s investigation, but interest in Assange occupies a place of primacy in the Mueller investigation timeline. WikiLeaks posted the trove of emails allegedly stolen from Democrats during the campaign by previously indicted Russian intelligence officers, although Assange has consistently—and not very convincingly—denied that the Russians were the source of the emails. The nature of the connections among the Trump campaign team, WikiLeaks, and the Russian officers has been one of the mainstays of the Mueller probe. Stone, an unreliable witness if ever there was one, was an early Trump supporter who has both bragged about his intimate relationship with WikiLeaks and Assange and denied having an intimate relationship with the operation. He's also claimed intimate foreknowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of the emails and denied that he knew anything that wasn't public domain. Donald Trump Jr., the easy mark of the Trump campaign, has also dallied with WikiLeaks. President Donald Trump, of course, has been effusive in his praise for WikiLeaks, speaking of his “love” for the organization and its email dumps repeatedly during the presidential campaign.

more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/17/julian-assange-robert-mueller-222608

[saidsimplesimon]

1. Assange worked with Russia

to undermine Mrs. Clinton's campaign. If he were an American citizen, I would call Assange a traitor. Perhaps the British will expel him to his native Australia?

I will never forgive, nor forget. Show him no mercy, revenge is a dish best served when he is out in the cold.

[dalton99a]

3. +1

[Sneederbunk]

2. Revenge or justice?