Assange Lawyer: Pentagon, Not White House, Trying to Destroy WikiLeaks Founder
Pentagon prominent force behind the campaign to destroy the whistleblower
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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's lawyer has claimed that the Pentagon, not the White House or any other government agency, was the prominent force behind the campaign to destroy the whistleblower which has spanned almost ten years.
After questioning Obama officials if they “really wanted” the publisher for whistleblowers and warning that “there are dangerous precedents here,” - Geoffrey Robertson said they responded:
"We don’t want him, but the Pentagon does, and the Pentagon may eventually get its way."
Robertson’s “high connections” got him an audience with Obama administration insiders after learning of the secret grand jury they had convened against Assange in 2010; he told Phillip Adams on ABC’s Radio National.
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After Robertson warned them of the First Amendment implication of charging Assange under national security laws, they were already aware that kind of precedent it would set.
Even though the Obama administration charged more leakers under the Espionage Act than any other president, it never tried to impose the law on a publisher.
Earlier this month, an extradition request for WikiLeaks founder was officially signed by the United Kingdom.
Assange faces charges in the US under the Espionage Act.
UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed he had signed the papers earlier this month, just a day after a formal request was made by the US Justice Department to extradite the Wikileaks founder.
"First of all I am very pleased the police were able to apprehend him, and now he is rightly behind bars because he broke UK law," Javid told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.
Pamela Anderson: Julian Assange Won't Survive Extradition to the US | Neon Nettle https://t.co/h1aw3bHUqL
— k (@kathysmith2k7) May 11, 2019
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If Assange is found guilty, he highly unlikely that the Eastern District of Virginia court will acquit him – he faces 170 years in prison.
According to Wikileaks, the grand jury investigation of Assange involved the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the FBI, the State Department, and the Diplomatic Security Service.
But it was the Pentagon that launched its quest to bring down Assange in 2008, beginning its campaign on WikiLeaks through its Cyber Counter-Intelligence Assessments Branch.
Anti-war journalist John Pilger claimed their plot involved a media war using reputational smears and “threats of exposure [and] criminal prosecution” which targeted the “feeling of trust” at the core of WikiLeaks’ operations.
But the Pentagon’s mission may have been accomplished.
As Assange has been smeared beyond return, most of his supporters doubt he will ever get a fair trial.
So far, the Wikileaks founder has been demonized as a rapist, traitor, fascist, and every other name in the book.
