Could a Guilty Plea Free Julian Assange From Jail? (msn.com) 94
America's Justice Department "is considering whether to allow Julian Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the matter."
Though Assange faces trial for publishing thousands of confidential U.S. documents in 2010, this development opens up "the possibility of a deal that could eventually result in his release from a British jail," reports the Journal.
Where things stand currently: A U.K. court is currently considering whether to allow a last-ditch appeal by the 52-year-old. After U.S. prosecutors charged him in 2019, U.K. law-enforcement officials apprehended him, and he has been in a London prison ever since... Britain's High Court is expected to decide within weeks whether to grant Assange a further right to appeal his extradition to the U.S. If the court rules against him, the U.S. government will likely have 28 days to come and collect Assange and bring him to face trial.
But... Justice Department officials and Assange's lawyers have had preliminary discussions in recent months about what a plea deal could look like to end the lengthy legal drama, according to people familiar with the matter, a potential softening in a standoff filled with political and legal complexities. The talks come as Assange has spent some five years behind bars. U.S. prosecutors face diminishing odds that he would serve much more time even if he were convicted stateside.
The discussions remain in flux, and talks could fizzle. Any deal would require approval at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said he has been given no indication that the department will take a deal. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
If prosecutors allow Assange to plead to a U.S. charge of mishandling classified documents — something his lawyers have floated as a possibility — it would be a misdemeanor offense. Under such a deal, Assange potentially could enter that plea remotely, without setting foot in the U.S. The time he has spent behind bars in London would count toward any U.S. sentence, and he would likely be free to leave prison shortly after any deal was concluded.
U.S. authorities "gave a package of assurances, including a pledge he could be transferred to his native Australia to serve any sentence," according to the article. The Australian government, which has largely been supportive of Assange, could shorten any sentence once he landed on Australian soil, said Nick Vamos, a partner at London law firm Peters & Peters and a former head of extradition for England and Wales's Crown Prosecution Service. "I honestly think as soon as he arrived in Australia he would be released," he said.
Though Assange faces trial for publishing thousands of confidential U.S. documents in 2010, this development opens up "the possibility of a deal that could eventually result in his release from a British jail," reports the Journal.
Where things stand currently: A U.K. court is currently considering whether to allow a last-ditch appeal by the 52-year-old. After U.S. prosecutors charged him in 2019, U.K. law-enforcement officials apprehended him, and he has been in a London prison ever since... Britain's High Court is expected to decide within weeks whether to grant Assange a further right to appeal his extradition to the U.S. If the court rules against him, the U.S. government will likely have 28 days to come and collect Assange and bring him to face trial.
But... Justice Department officials and Assange's lawyers have had preliminary discussions in recent months about what a plea deal could look like to end the lengthy legal drama, according to people familiar with the matter, a potential softening in a standoff filled with political and legal complexities. The talks come as Assange has spent some five years behind bars. U.S. prosecutors face diminishing odds that he would serve much more time even if he were convicted stateside.
The discussions remain in flux, and talks could fizzle. Any deal would require approval at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said he has been given no indication that the department will take a deal. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
If prosecutors allow Assange to plead to a U.S. charge of mishandling classified documents — something his lawyers have floated as a possibility — it would be a misdemeanor offense. Under such a deal, Assange potentially could enter that plea remotely, without setting foot in the U.S. The time he has spent behind bars in London would count toward any U.S. sentence, and he would likely be free to leave prison shortly after any deal was concluded.
U.S. authorities "gave a package of assurances, including a pledge he could be transferred to his native Australia to serve any sentence," according to the article. The Australian government, which has largely been supportive of Assange, could shorten any sentence once he landed on Australian soil, said Nick Vamos, a partner at London law firm Peters & Peters and a former head of extradition for England and Wales's Crown Prosecution Service. "I honestly think as soon as he arrived in Australia he would be released," he said.
Re: (Score:3)
Ehh, I think this more a sign that they are done with Assange. As a dead man he could be a martyr, but as a free man he's just irrelevant.
Re: (Score:1)
I think for the DOJ it's more a sunk cost thing, they've spent this long on it they want to get something, like a bill collector taking 1/10 just to finally close the account.
Hopefully any part of it is he won't be allowed in the US again, let Australia have him.
Re:Key and opertive words.... (Score:5, Informative)
He did ask the Swedish authorities if it was alright for him to leave for the UK. They said yes.
Only after he was already in the UK did Sweden ask for an extradition. He offered to be questioned via Skype, they said no.
Then they dropped the charges because there was nothing to them. The UK called them cowards for it.
The charge was not rape, by the way. The charge was pretending to wear a condom during sex. And the charge was not made by the supposed victim, who only asked informally if, hypothetically, she could force him to be tested for AIDS. The charge was made by an overeager policewoman. And was dropped after the woman talked to a newspaper about how her relationship was being misrepresented.
I wouldn't put too much faith in the legal system that found the founders of Thepiratebay guilty of something that is not a crime in Sweden, but imprisoned one of them anyway (and drove the others into exile):
http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/0... [falkvinge.net]
Some probably see Sweden as a country where proper due process of law prevails, or at least exists. Others would very much like to see Sweden as such a country. One thing that this country has shown is, that when the interests of its establishment are threatened, all the branches of government fuse into one and cut any corners needed to neutralize the threat to its establishment, rules and rights be damned.
http://falkvinge.net/2011/09/0... [falkvinge.net]
Since the 1980s, the US has aggressively threatened trade sanctions against countries who don’t give American companies sufficiently large competitive advantages — this is described in detail in the book Information Feudalism about the origins of the TRIPs agreement and WTO, for those interested in gory details. In practice, it works like this: industry associations in the US go to the Trade Representatives, who go to the myriad offices dealing with Foreign Policy, who go to the embassies, who talk to national governments (including the Swedish one) and demand changes to national law to benefit American corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
And vulnerable to wetworks.
Re:Key and opertive words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US spending tens of millions on destroying Assange's life is a fraction of a fraction of a long-forgotten black budget for some pet CIA project. The message they get from torturing him for as long as he lives is worth it, for the blob
Re: (Score:2)
Ehh, I think this more a sign that they are done with Assange. As a dead man he could be a martyr, but as a free man he's just irrelevant.
Nobody eats animal crackers and drinks juice boxes in celebration on St. Epstein's Day. I don't think assassinating him in prison would turn him into a martyr.
Dear J. Assange, from the US (Score:1)
First off, we gotta admit that we really pulled out all the stops while dealing with you. We're not nice. We let you have it, a whole lot harder than most of our enemies. On the other hand, you were really, REALLY asking for it and you REALLY pissed us off. As an individual, you publicly and proudly declared yourself as our enemy. You colluded with our worst state adversary
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
No True Easterner ...?
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, first off, how about socialism? Socialism and Communism are basically cousins. In practice they're almost twins. If you lump democracies (US, Europe, India, a chunk of South America, other), communisms (North Korea and who knows who else) and socialisms (China nominally, Cuba, a chunk of South America, other) together as "the west" which you hate, then what the heck are you proposing as the better alternative? Mo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well most Russians are still convinced that they're doing well because the ruble, their main unit of currency, went from being worth $0.007 to having parity with a zinc penny.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Dear J. Assange, from the US (Score:2)
You forgot to check the "and this time, it will really happen!" box.
Re: (Score:2)
It'll happen eventually. No system stays on top forever. But it's more likely to be "sometime around 2400" than "just around the corner".
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.voltairenet.org/ar... [voltairenet.org]
The world order already changed in 2022
Re: (Score:2)
THATS your evidence that the world order is changing?
It just reinforces the position I chose a long time ago. I’m all-in on democratic capitalism. I’m sure that someday, somebody will figure out a superior system, but it
Re: (Score:2)
It's a bit silly to call someone "peace loving" who wants to end a civil war by force, but that's irrelevant. If you read that far, you'll have seen that Thierry says explicitly that you don't have to agree with him about Russia because that is not the point. That is just the context, which, he admits, can be interpreted in different ways.
The point is after that. And it has nothing to do with democratic plutocracy, so it shouldn't threaten your world view.
That's my source, it lists specific examples of h
No Deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the US Government has the evidence that Assange committed Espionage by:
-taking advantage of Manning's psychological fragility to actively encouraging him (was a he at the time...) to violate his oath,
-and coaching Manning in HOW TO steal and exfiltrate the data,
then show it -publicly- in court.
If the US Government cannot produce such evidence, admit it.
Either way, end this bullshit. It is old news.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, journalism (the old-school kind).
Imagine wanting "developing sources" to be illegal, much less overseas.
Re: No Deal. (Score:2)
Manning was pretty open about how he wanted to cause harm to the US military. That's not what a whistleblower does.
https://huwieler.net/2017/01/1... [huwieler.net]
Re:No Deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the US Government has the evidence that Assange committed Espionage by:
-taking advantage of Manning's psychological fragility to actively encouraging him (was a he at the time...) to violate his oath,
-and coaching Manning in HOW TO steal and exfiltrate the data,
then show it -publicly- in court.
If the US Government cannot produce such evidence, admit it.
Either way, end this bullshit. It is old news.
Ok, here ya go [arstechnica.com]. There might be some work to prove that Assange is the individual texting, but he they can he's in trouble.
IANAL but AFAIK this is pretty standard stuff, if someone comes to you with stolen/leaked info the crime is already done and you can generally publish what you got.
But if you specifically ask someone to leak that info then you can end up a co-conspirator if they follow through, like I recall some left-wing pundit asking for someone to leak Trump's taxes, and could have landed them in legal trouble.
Even if they showed up after the initial leak the person Manning was chatting with seems to have been encouraging them to leak, that makes them a co-conspirator. Any country in the world is going to try and prosecute you for that.
Re: (Score:3)
Whether it is stolen or not has no bearing on whether you can publish it or not.
Journalistic integrity requires a balanacing between privacy and public interest. The secrets Assange is accused of having published had been published first by two American newspapers. They are not an never have been accused or charged. The case of the Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers cemented the precedent that journalists may learn all they can about their government, and publish everything that is relevant to politics.
Re: (Score:2)
but he they can he's in trouble
I don't see it. Did Arstechnica just leave out the quotes where he does the active encouraging and decide to only publish the quotes where they're rambling about nothing? I don't want to read the whole thing, can you direct me to the part where he does the active encouraging?
Australia is not China (Score:2)
If the US Government cannot produce such evidence, admit it.
The US Government will never its wrongdoing in geopolitical bullying. The most it would do is to save face by agreeing to a no-lost-no-win bargaining deal [nytimes.com], but that's only if it is confronting its only formidable rival on this planet -- China (*).
Australia is no China. Australia is just a puppet state of the USA. It cannot and will not fight for its citizen Assange, not to mention its own military had committed equally bad war crimes and prosecuting its whistleblower [aljazeera.com].
(*) And for those who have claimed China
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Manning is still a he. Unless they found a way to CRISPR his Y chromosome somehow.
Re: No Deal. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I reject your fantasy world.
Gender being different from sex is a concept invented by a child abuser called John Money.
This monster pushed the parents of David Reimer, whose penis hat been irreparably damaged in a circumcision to have the boy surgically turned "into a girl" and raised as such.
He then experimented with the twins and forced them into sexual encounters WITH EACH OTHER at the age of six.
David committed suicide after being a distraught and unhappy child at the age of 38.
THAT is where this monstr
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you're fucking clueless about gender identity. Luckily for society you're already old enough, so you won't be posting stupid stuff on the Internet for much longer.
sounds like a precedent (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Stop pretending that the USA have any jurisdiction over Assange in the first place
It obviously does, if it didn't extradition wouldn't be possible. Courts have already ruled on this, so your "opinion" is completely irrelevant.
Re:Stop pretending Assange is a victim. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny that there are multiple human right lawyers that agree that the extradition is illegal.
The funny thing about lawyers is they are paid to argue either side of any case. It is literally their job to be able to argue both sides of the case. But ultimately what lawyers say is irrelevant. They don't decide matters. Judges do. And the Judges say it was legal.
There is a record of over a dozen cases where Sweden (where this proceeding started) has extradited people under violation of international conventions signed by Swedish, including the ECHR and Geneva convention.
Sweden has zero to do with this case. They aren't involved and there are no outstanding judges. Just because Assange may have been wanted for rape in Sweden some time in the past has no bearing on any part of the current case or the extradition
Re: (Score:2)
*there are no outstanding claims * not judges. But even with my mistake you would have gotten my point.
Re: Stop pretending Assange is a victim. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The courts? Hmm.. if an Iranian, Chinese or North Korean soldier leaked secrets to Julian.. and there courts ruled the same would you agree Julian should be sent to that country?
Yes. Because the courts word is final in the eyes of the law. And I say this with great confidence given that your contrived example is absurd on its face because the USA has no extradition treaties with Iran, China, or North Korea, so a court couldn't possibly rule to send Julian to one of those countries.
The courts don't decide shit in a vacuum. There are laws to follow. If you don't like the law, express your disappointment at the ballot box, don't go claiming that the courts somehow lack jurisdiction or
Re: (Score:3)
He didn't differentiate between valid material that served the purposes of whistlbelowing and random secrets
Actually, yes, he did. He worked with other journalists from reputable newspapers to that end.
Guilty of journalism! (Score:4, Informative)
People that dare to cross the state get locked up if not murdered. There lives are destroyed by the Fascistic-State that is masquerading as a Western Democracy.
Re: (Score:2)
I personally haven't encountered anybody that has an issue with him for anything WikiLeaks did with war related leaks, I myself have no issue with that as it seemed like the WikiLeaks mantra was "if you leak it to us, we release it and all of it". There was an heir of impartiality that lended it credibility.
When he started communicating with political operatives, drip feeding releases, stating that he was only interested in leaking a particular candidates info, making himself the center of attention, he do
Re:Guilty of journalism! (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
So Julian is guilty of being a journalist...
No, his alleged crimes have nothing to do with publishing or revealing anything at all. It's best to understand what is being discussed before trying to be part of a conversation.
Stupid US (Score:2)
Assange may be a fruitcake, but he is an innocent fruitcake.
Plea deals are fundamentally blackmail, getting you to admit guilt, without the government having to show evidence or prove anything. Pile on nonsense cgarges, to scare peopke into accepting. The government's case against Assange is weak to nonexistent. They know it, they gave always known.
Assange ruined his own life, by making really stupid decisions. That's a shame. As others have said, he should have faced the accusations in Sweden.
Re: (Score:2)
Mishandling? (Score:1)
How can he be charged with mishandling of classified documents when he had no expectation of doing so? That is reserved for military, contractors, etc who work with classified information. They have the expectation to protect national security and classified information. Assange is simply a third party journalist who is an Australian/Equdorean citizen.
>18 U.S.C. 1924 says, âoe(a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, emp
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This.
The only reasonable charge against Assange should be based on his assisting Manning in breaking into systems to obtain data. I don't want to see a precedent created for the mere possession of data that the US Army couldn't properly secure in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
if a store can't secure their merchandise, somebody steals it, gives it to you, you should be totally innocent after receiving stolen merchandise? Doesn't work that way.
It sorf of does, depending on how you define "can't".
For an example: Aaron Swartz was accused of breaking and entering, but because the door wasn't locked, that accusation had to be dismissed. The only charge that stuck was copyright infringement.
And receiving stolen merchandise isn't a crime in itself. Selling goods that you know were stolen is. Which is not relevant here.
Re: (Score:2)
you should be totally innocent after receiving stolen merchandise?
Only if you had no prior knowledge of it being stolen. Once this is discovered, your only obligation is to report it and return it.
Intellectual property works a bit differently. Since you can't "un-know" a fact, you can not relinquish your possession of it. There is no "Men In Black" flashlight. And requiring that you do not divulge or act upon the knowledge gained has serious First Amendment implications.
Fuck off, cops (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
He’s a sworn enemy of the US. That came right out of his own mouth. Deliberately set out to influence the US electrions? Yup. Also directly admitted. And people wonder why the US came down so hard on him.
A “useful idiot” that helped Russia? Pretty much verified.
A rapist? That seems to be a he-said-she-said thing. Multiple women accused him, but it evid
Re: (Score:2)
Assange is guilty of nothing but journalism and publishing details powerful people don't like.
He isn't being charged with anything related to publishing anything. Tell us you don't know what's going on without saying you don't have a clue what's going on.
Re:Guilty of Journalism (Score:2)
What do you think he is being charged with?
I lost track after they kept changing the charges. Last I heard was mishandling of secret data, soft of like forgetting to return secret documents that you took home if I understand it correctly. But that doesn't make sense because he never had official clearance to begin with.
it's a trap (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
don't
You clearly don't know the US legal system. It's not a trap as much as it is a gamble, a roll of the die. Normally you weigh up pleading guilty for leniency against winning your case, and in a local matter you may be better off dragging things through the courts. But this isn't a local matter. This is a complex international matter of global political significance. Odds that the USA doesn't have a case are quite slim, so the advice would be to definitely take a plea-bargain if offered here.
Reminds me of "Jan 6 insurrection" guilty pleas (Score:3)
This reminds me of the sentencing of the "January 6 insurrection" guilty pleas. As I (a non-lawyer) understand it...
Regardless of whether you consider it an insurrection or a protest march petitioning the government for redress of grievances...
In the wake of the events, the fed busted a bunch of the participants and left them rotting in prison for months (over a year), with no end in sight. In many cases this left families with no breadwinner, enormous legal costs, and expectations of losing all their property as part of some eventual conviction.
Then the prosecutors offered some of the defendants a plea deal; Plead guilty to a misdemeanor or short-sentence felony and we'll drop any other charges.
Rule of thumb: a misdemeanor generally is a crime with a max sentence of no more than a year in prison, a felony more than a year - which is why you see "year and a day" max sentences on some crimes. An accused person already in prison for over the max sentence would expect that accepting the deal would result in immediate release with "credit for time served" (and others near the max might expect release much sooner). So some of them went for it.
Came the sentencing some judges applied a two-year sentence enhancements for "substantial interference with the 'administration of justice.'" OOPS! No release for you.
I'd expect them to pull the same sort of thing on Assange if he were foolish enough to plead guilty to anything, no matter how minor.
(By the way: This particular form of the practice, as used on the Jan6 participants, was just recently struck down. But the decision was based on Congress' certification of the presidential election not qualifying as "administration of justice.'" So this wouldn't apply to whatever enhancement trick they might pull on Julian.
Re: (Score:2)
and left them rotting in prison for months (over a year), with no end in sight
This is just standard operation, it's not some special thing that they only use against enemies of the state. It's an average of 12-18 months before you get your "speedy trial" in federal court, and 98% of federal cases end with a plea bargain. Literally 98% [npr.org].
If you're only just now learning about how abusive our penal system is, look up how many people we put in prison, how many of those are nonviolent offenders, how long their sentences are, how many of those severe sentences are due to mandatory minimu
Helicopter crew (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? What has your whataboutism got to do with the story at hand?
Re: (Score:2)
I would think everything given the charges at hand are just a trumped up case to scare others away from exposing similar crimes. Like the invasion of Iraq itself for example. Even Bush called himself a terrorist after all.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Govt. employees commit war crime by targeting & killing journalists (most likely a tacit policy of "shoot anything that moves") >
2. Whistle-blower tells journalist about crime & provides evidence (performing his moral duty as a citizen) >
3. Journalist reports crime & provides supporting evidence (doing his job) >
4. Govt. prosecutes journalist & whistle-blower but not the employees who committed the cri
Re: (Score:2)
They were just following orders, under the then-current Rules of Engagement. As soldiers they are not responsible, thinking for themselves like civilians would make them compicit in a conspiracy to commit trespassing, mass murder, vandalism of public and private property, and theft. The blame rests with their commanding officers.
Except, in one case involving deaths in a torture prison in Afghanistan, the soldiers who were following orders based in directives given by the vice president personally were acc
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Disappearances, torture, extra-judicial executions, etc., when you excuse this kind of treatment anywhere in the world, you can excuse it in your own country, against your own citizens too, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
What goes unpunished becomes normalised & accepted. You former president, Barack Obama, is famous for declaring, "T
Re: (Score:2)
murder is murder.
Ah, but then being a soldier would be illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've read it. Oddly, it is not specific about people who cannot be killed, it is taken as read that murdering civilians is a no-no.
It is specific about how combatants can be killed, and what not to do to them when they are captured.
You see, there is a line, and on one side of the line murder is a crime, and on the other side murder is a duty. Soldiers are not murderers though, because if they were people and thus culpable, they would be criminals.
So you see, not all types of murder are the same:
There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. The ICJ doesn't care about individuals, only about subjects of international law, such as countries and peoples and the like. So in that context, murder is not a matter at all. Genocide is.
The ICC does care about individuals. In particular, it decides whose collateral murder is a war crime and whose isn't.
Re: (Score:1)
All depends on Discovery. (Score:2)
Election Year (Score:1)
Well, it's an election year, and if you're willing to buy votes with trillions in student loan forgiveness, what's freeing a criminal?
Re: (Score:2)
Assange is not a criminal. He has not been tried, let alone found guilty, after at least twelve years of allegations. He hasn't even been formally accused yet, and the prosecutors haven't settled on what to charge him with in the last five years.
Pleading guilty would be an admission of guilt. Then you could call him a criminal, but he also wouldn't walk free.
As it is, it is doubtful if he can be extradited at all, what with the USA having a history of breaking international agreements and their human rig
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you spouting semantics at me?
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference. Sense is given by the ideas and concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object to which an expression points. Semantics contrasts with syntax, which studies the rules that dictate how to create grammatically correct sentences, and pragmatics, which investigates how people use language in communication.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, thanks. That was totally awesome.
Current DoJ is proven untrustworthy (Score:2)
There were a bunch of Jan 6 protesters who were deliberately overcharged (should have been hit with typical Capitol Hill trespassing charges, but hit with all sorts of extra stuff) and then encouraged to simply plead guilty to lesser charges to "make it go away" (time served, a little community service, etc). Then, after they agreed and plead guilty to the lesser charges, this DoJ notified their attorneys they were now being hit with new terrorism charges, and given they had already pleaded guilty, they wer
Mishandling classified information? (Score:2)
How Julian Assange be charged with mishandling classified information? It was never his responsibility to handle such information.
People like Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, had the responsibility to correctly handle classified information. If a senator, or vice president, or secretary of state mishandled classified information, *that* would be serious crime.