Exclusive
from Democracy Now!
The
Justice Department has inadvertently revealed that it has prepared an
indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In an unusual
development, language about the charges against Assange was copied
and pasted into an unrelated court filing that was recently unsealed.
In the document, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer wrote, “Due
to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding
the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact
that Assange has been charged.”
The news
broke on Thursday night just hours after The Wall Street Journal
reported the Justice Department was planning to prosecute Assange.
Assange has been living since 2012 in the Ecuadorean Embassy in
London where he has sought refuge and political asylum. It’s
unclear what charges may be brought against Assange; the Justice
Department has previously considered prosecuting him over his role in
the release of hacked DNC emails during the 2016 presidential
campaign, as well as over the release of the so-called Iraq and
Afghanistan War Logs, shared by U.S. military whistleblower Chelsea
Manning.
The
Assange case has been closely followed by advocates for press
freedom. Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch tweeted, “Deeply
troubling if the Trump administration, which has shown little regard
for media freedom, would charge Assange for receiving from a
government official and publishing classified information—exactly
what journalists do all the time.”
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