Tag Archives: Julian Assange

Politico reports: The Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case. It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the …

NBC News reports: Julian Assange has been left in a state of “extreme stress, chronic anxiety” and “constant panic” after spending seven years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, a leading United Nations expert who visited the WikiLeaks co-founder in prison said Thursday. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, told NBC News he blames the United States, United …

Reuters reports: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was too ill on Thursday to appear via video link from a British prison in a hearing on an extradition request from the United States, his lawyer said. The United States is seeking the extradition of Assange, 47, who was dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London on April 11. He faces a total …

USA Today reports: WikiLeaks found Julian Assange was charged Thursday with conspiring to obtain national security secrets in what prosecutors have described as one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history, the Justice Department announced Thursday. In all, federal prosecutors filed 18 new charges against Assange. They include allegations that he aided and abetted former Army intelligence …

Axios reports: U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been jailed again on civil contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury subpoena on Thursday. Manning told reporters earlier on Thursday from in front of the courthouse that she’d rather remain in jail “forever,” than testify before a grand jury on the details of Wikileaks. “I’ve already been to …

The BBC reports: Swedish prosecutors have reopened an investigation into a rape allegation made against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange in 2010. The inquiry has been revived at the request of the alleged victim’s lawyer. Assange, who denies the charges, has avoided extradition to Sweden for seven years after seeking refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012. The 47-year-old …

The New York Times reports: Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who provided secret military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, was released from jail Thursday after being held for two months for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the online leak-publishing organization. Ms. Manning’s release came on the day that the term of the grand jury that …

The Associated Press reports: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has confirmed that he will fight extradition to the United States, where he is accused of conspiring to hack a government computer. At a court hearing Thursday, Assange said he would not surrender to extradition for doing what he called “journalism that has won many awards.” Assange appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court …

The Washington Post reports: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced on Wednesday to 50 weeks in a British prison for jumping bail. His sentencing comes a day before an extradition hearing in London related to separate charges in the United States for conspiring to hack a government password. Assange, 47, who appeared in court at London’s Southwark Crown Court wearing …

CBS News reports: Ecuador revoked Julian Assange’s asylum status because he smeared his feces on the walls of the country’s embassy, Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said. In an interview with CBS News’ partner BBC News, Moreno said Assange “even attacked some of the guards, something that definitely can’t be tolerated.” “He exhausted our patience and pushed our tolerance to the …

Agence France-Presse report: Ecuador said on Monday it has suffered 40 million cyber attacks on the webpages of public institutions since stripping Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of political asylum. Patricio Real, Ecuador’s deputy minister for information and communication technologies, said the attacks, which began on Thursday, had “principally come from the United States, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Romania, France, Austria and …

ABC News reports: The process of moving Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy started a year ago, on March 7, 2018, when the Ecuadorians made their first request to the U.K.: a letter asking for written assurances that the U.K. would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to the Ecuadorian Interior Minister …

The Guardian reports: Julian Assange repeatedly violated his asylum conditions and tried to use the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a “centre for spying”, Ecuador’s president has said in an interview with the Guardian. Moreno’s move against Assange has proved controversial in Ecuador. The previous president, Rafael Correa, has accused his one-time political ally of “a crime humanity will never …

Slate reports: It is a rare treat these days to see Kate McKinnon do an impression without extensive makeup, and Pete Davidson, who rarely gets much to do in sketches, pulls off an entire monologue without breaking. But the star is undoubtedly Michael Keaton as a gum-chewing Assange, strutting around the holding cell boasting about being the “King of Chaos” …

Business Insider reports: Julian Assange’s arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London was carried out in a specific way to prevent him from pressing a mysterious panic button he said could bring dire consequences for Ecuador, its foreign minister said. During this stay, Assange is accused of threatening Jaime Merchan, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, with activating some kind …

The Associated Press reports: Key figures in Britain’s opposition Labour Party said Friday the government should oppose the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States on charges of conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a tweet that the U.S. is trying to extradite Assange because he exposed “evidence of atrocities …

Time Magazine reports: Bill and Hillary Clinton on Thursday night were at the first stop in their new speaking tour, and she spoke about Assange. “I think it’s clear from the indictment that it’s not about punishing journalism,” said Clinton. “It’s about assisting the hacking of the military computer to steal information from the United States government.” “I’ll wait and …

“What’s happening here is, unfortunately, it is some form of retaliation coming from the government saying, ‘Hey, this is what happens when you release information that we don’t want you to release.’ And I think that’s why this is such a dangerous and slippery slope, not only for journalists, not only for those in the media, but also for every …

Just in from the Department of Justice: Julian P. Assange, 47, the founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested today in the United Kingdom pursuant to the U.S./UK Extradition Treaty, in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer. According to court documents unsealed today, the charge …

The Hill reports: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is applauding the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by British police acting on a U.S. extradition warrant. Assange, who published hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016, had been living in the Embassy of Ecuador in London under asylum protection since 2012. Assange fled to the …