Posts
To
Get Assange, US Likely to Play the “Russia” Angle Via Mueller
Probe
By
treating Assange as a Russian collaborator — not as a journalist or
publisher — and using the carefully cultivated RussiaGate hysteria
against him, it will spare other journalists the obligation of
belatedly coming to Assange’s aid and they will instead continue to
align themselves with the very institutions that seek to destroy a
colleague and his organization.
by
Whitney Webb
1 August, 2018
LONDON
— New reports from a host of mainstream sources are
asserting that the U.S. government — in its long-standing efforts
to arrest and prosecute WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange — may have
changed its strategy in pursuing the journalist. While past efforts
at targeting Assange focused on his role as a publisher, this new
strategy would see Assange targeted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller
as an asset of Russian military intelligence.
As
several recent
reports at MintPress and other
independent outlets have
noted, the fate of WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and the
legal charges he is likely to face if extradited to the United States
are likely to set several key precedents that could upend freedom of
the press, citizen rights, and other cornerstones of modern democracy
— that is, if he is prosecuted as a publisher of classified
information.
Yet,
by changing its strategy and catching Assange up in the Mueller probe
as well as linking him to a “hostile” foreign entity, the U.S.
government would be able to save face by avoiding setting these
problematic precedents while also still unleashing its full fury upon
the Australian-born journalist who has long been the object
of extreme
hostility from
the U.S. political establishment
The problematic case against Assange as journalist/publisher
Since
2010, the U.S. has been conducting a
grand jury investigation that
seeks to nail Assange for publishing material via WikiLeaks, an
effort that has expanded under the Trump administration following
WikiLeaks’ publication of the CIA hacking exploits in the Vault
7 releases.
Those
charges — conspiracy, theft, and electronic espionage among them —
could see Assange imprisoned for life or even face the death penalty.
The existence of such charges was confirmed in a CNN report published
Saturday,
which stated that “[…] according to U.S. officials, charges
[against Assange] have been drawn up relating to previous WikiLeaks
disclosures of classified U.S. documents.”
However,
those grand jury charges focus on WikiLeaks’ publication of
materials it obtained from its sources. Thus, as Glenn
Greenwald recently
noted at The
Intercept,
prosecuting Assange for merely publishing classified
government documents could then “easily be used to put them [any
and all American or foreign journalists] in a prison cell alongside
Assange for the new ‘crime’ of publishing any documents that the
U.S. government has decreed should not be published.” Such a
precedent Greenwald asserted would be “the gravest press freedom
threat in decades.”
Julian
Assange, top left, appears via video link with Glenn Greenwald,
right, during a forum in Auckland, New Zealand, Sept. 15, 2014.
Brett Phibbs | AP
Thus,
it is no surprise that the U.S. seems poised instead use another
strategy to go after Assange, one that would avoid opening this
pandora’s box for American and foreign journalists alike.
Indeed,
U.S. officials have already made this point clear. Five years ago, in
2013, Obama administration officials told The
Washington Post that
“there is little possibility of bringing a case against Assange
unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing
online top-secret military and diplomatic documents.” Former Obama
Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller further elaborated on
this to the Post,
stating that “if you are not going to prosecute journalists for
publishing classified information, which the department is not, then
there is no way to prosecute Assange.”
In
other words, the U.S. government — in order to prosecute Assange —
must first accuse him of involvement in “criminal activity” that
does not center on his publishing of classified documents.
Now,
thanks to the Mueller probe and the political climate it has
fostered, the U.S. government seems to have gotten the opening it has
long sought in its pursuit of Assange.
A tactical course correction and path of least resistance
Following
the most recent indictments issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller
and his team earlier this month, mainstream media sources have been
openly discussing the possibility that Assange will be targeted not
for publishing classified information but for allegedly working on
behalf of Russian military intelligence.
The recent indictments issued by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller imply that Assange and WikiLeaks were a conduit for Russian intelligence in distributing hacked Democratic Party emails in 2016.” [emphasis added]
That
same article goes on to speculate that “a sealed indictment” in
relation to the Russian hacking probe may await Julian Assange if he
is extradited to the United States.
Similar
claims have
also been made by
the Washington
Monthly, which
recently published a report stating:
Based on the latest Mueller indictments, it is clear that Julian Assange and the Russians coordinated the timing of the release of the DNC emails to coincide with the Democratic Convention in order to sow conflict between Sanders and Clinton supporters.”
Another
report, this time published
in the Washington
Examiner,
also spoke of these possibilities and asserted that the latest round
of Mueller indictments targeting several Russian intelligence
operatives had put Assange “back on the hot seat.” That report
claims that the recently released indictments reveal that Assange was
“eager” to obtain information allegedly stolen by Russian
military intelligence from the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
and collaborated with Russian military intelligence by giving
“Russian hackers advice on how to disseminate it [the leaked DNC
emails].”
Robert
Mueller, special counsel probing Russian interference in the 2016
election, departs Capitol Hill following a closed door meeting in
Washington. Andrew Harnik | AP
The
report also claims that the indictments “undermine” Assange’s
repeated denials that the source of the DNC emails was a DNC insider,
not the Russian government, even though Assange’s claims have been
corroborated by several independent analysts, including celebrated
NSA whistleblower William
“Bill” Binney.
Furthermore,
some writers of the establishment left, such as Bill Palmer, have
asserted that
“the grand jury proceedings strongly suggest that Mueller plans to
indict [Trump confidante Roger] Stone and Assange in tandem.”
Palmer asserted that
an indictment against
Assange is “imminent” given that Mueller “is now subpoenaing
Stone’s closest friends and associates. This comes even as Ecuador
says it’s turning Assange over to British authorities – a
possible sign that he’ll be indicted by Mueller and extradited.”
Thus,
it appears that a consensus is beginning to emerge in the mainstream
press that Assange is set to be imminently indicted through the
Mueller probe, not necessarily the long-standing grand jury
proceeding, as such an indictment would be used to accuse of Assange
of collaborating with Russian military intelligence in its alleged
interference with the 2016 U.S. elections, an act that some lawmakers
have likened to an “act
of war.”
In
addition, a group of Democratic senators recently
demanded the
end of Assange’s asylum and his extradition to the U.S. along these
same lines, asserting that Assange was a partner in alleged Russian
intelligence “interference” in the 2016 election.
It
is also worth observing that these reports fail to note that the
indictments are merely accusations written by Mueller and his team
and do not contain concrete evidence, as such evidence is only set to
be presented in a court of law. Given that the Russians named in the
indictments are unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. courtroom, Mueller
will likely never need to actually prove his case. Furthermore, when
some subjects of past Mueller indictments did appear in U.S. courts
against all odds, Mueller actually scrambled
to delay the
hearing — leading some analysts to claim this was a sign that the
special counsel lacked actual evidence to back up his indictments.
A long narrative drum-roll
These
recent reports discussing the increasing likelihood that Assange will
be targeted via the Mueller probe are only building off a larger and
more long-standing media effort to paint Assange as a “Russian
puppet” and “Russian intelligence asset” ever since the DNC
emails were published by WikiLeaks and subsequently blamed on the
Russians by U.S. politicians and government officials.
For
instance, a New
York Times article in
August 2016 strung together a narrative of events that claimed to
show that Assange had a mutually beneficial relationship with the
Russian government. The article admits to being speculative, stating
as its thesis the following:
Whether by conviction, convenience or coincidence, WikiLeaks’ document releases, along with many of Mr. Assange’s statements, have often benefited Russia, at the expense of the West.”
The Times article,
in one example, cites Assange’s interview show, “The
World Tomorrow,” which
was broadcast on Russia
Today, to
insinuate that Assange had previously been on the Russian
government’s payroll. However, it was later revealed that Russia
Today was
among over a dozen broadcasters that purchased a broadcasting license
for Assange’s show. Despite that, the arc of the story paints
Assange as a Russian collaborator using similarly threadbare
evidence.
In
the two years since that report, the Assange-as-Russian-asset
narrative has been carefully cultivated by similar outlets. Smears
against Assange and WikiLeaks have
been numerous and biting — with many making repeated false
assertions that have since become staples of American political
discourse, owing to their frequent propagation by mainstream
media despite
their false nature.
As Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels once said, “repeat a lie often
enough and it becomes the truth.”
One
of the end results of over two years of constant reporting on
RussiaGate hysteria has been priming the American public to respond
irrationally and in a reactionary way to political events. It has
also worked to cultivate blind faith in the FBI and the U.S.
intelligence community, despite their long records of near-constant
lying to the American public.
A
House Intelligence Committee task force questions attorney’s from
Google, Twitter and Facebook about Russian ads during a hearing on
Capitol Hill, Nov. 1, 2017. Manuel Balce Ceneta | AP
As
a result, if Assange is persecuted through the Mueller probe as
having acted as a “conduit” for Russian military intelligence, he
will be treated as an “enemy of the state” and an asset of a
“hostile” government, not as a mere publisher of information. He
will be treated as a Russian spy, not a journalist.
Furthermore,
if the “evidence” presented by Mueller against Assange is based
on confidential assessments by U.S. intelligence or the FBI, those
buying into RussiaGate will accept it as fact, just as many still
accept the
proven falsehood that
“all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies have agreed that Russia tried to
influence the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump.”
As
the recent Trump-Putin summit showed, in mainstream U.S. political
discourse, doubting the findings of U.S. intelligence is tantamount
to “treason.”
However,
if Assange is prosecuted under these terms, which seems increasingly
likely, it will ironically be the Trump administration that benefits
the most. Indeed, the Trump administration has been adamant in its
desire to see Assange apprehended. If Assange is targeted by the
Mueller probe, it would deflect the public’s and Mueller’s
attention away from Trump while also allowing Trump’s
administration to imprison a “priority” target.
Going
after Assange through the Mueller probe comes after an unprecedented
smear campaign to rob the journalist of as much of his support base
as possible. If the government were to prosecute Assange in such a
way that other journalists could be targeted — as
Greenwald and others have warned — that would risk Assange
receiving support from many of those who have helped smear him,
forcing them to defend him in order to protect their craft.
However,
by treating Assange as a Russian collaborator — not as a journalist
or publisher — and using the carefully cultivated Russian hysteria
against him, it will spare those journalists the obligation of
belatedly coming to Assange’s aid and they will instead continue to
align themselves with the very institutions that seek to destroy
Assange and his organization.
Top
Photo | WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves after greeting
supporters outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, May 19, 2017
Frank Augstein | AP
Whitney
Webb is
a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s
Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron
Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made
radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with
her family in southern Chile.
