After entering a plea bargain with President Biden’s Department of Justice, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was released from prison on Monday.
Assange pleaded guilty to breaking the Espionage Act, in which he “knowingly and fraudulently” obtained and shared classified information about the US government’s activities in the Middle East, according to previously released court papers. He has been imprisoned in a European prison for five decades. According to CNBC, “tens of hundreds of exercise information about the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of information about the war in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of State Department wires and judgment briefs of detainees at the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” were included in these details.
In releasing the data via Wikileaks, Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning, a trans- identifying gentleman and past U. S. military apple official. While originally sentenced to 35 years in prison, Manning’s sentence was commuted by former President Obama in the waning weeks of his presidency.
Assange is expected to appear in court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U. S. controlled territory, at around 9: 00 a. m. local time on Wednesday, according to a letter issued by the DOJ. The islands are close to Australia, Assange’s home country, where he is scheduled to return after his court appearance and release. The plea deal, according to the BBC, will allow Assange to spend” no time in US custody and… receive credit for the time spent incarcerated in the UK.”
According to Assange’s wife,” the issue with obtaining and disclosing national defense information is obviously very serious concern for journalists and national security journalists in general,” she stated to Reuters on Tuesday that she will seek a pardon for her husband.
In addition to the previously mentioned classified materials, Wikileaks also published hacked communications from the Democratic National Committee in the months leading up to the 2016 election. The special counsel’s 2019 report, which found no evidence Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, noted that Mueller could not ascertain “how the stolen Democratic material was transferred to WikiLeaks” or “how WikiLeaks acquired the stolen information” as RealClearInvestigations stated.
Shawn Fleetwood is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and a staff writer for The Federalist. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClear Health, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
