KEVIN GOSZTOLA, kgosztola@protonmail.com, @kgosztola
Gosztola is author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange and curates The Dissenter.
He said today: “Assange pled guilty to a conspiracy charge under the Espionage Act.” Assange is flying “to a court in the U.S. commonwealth in the Northern Marianas Islands to enter his plea. He will then fly to Australia and be in his home country for the first time in over a decade.
“The Assange case was the most high-profile press freedom case of the 21st century, and U.S. prosecutors came closer than ever to putting a journalist and publisher through an Espionage Act trial in a U.S. court. But Assange and his legal team secured a plea deal — a massive defeat for the” U.S. government “personnel who backed targeting, detaining, and prosecuting the WikiLeaks founder under Biden and President Donald Trump.
“Unmistakably, U.S. government officials damaged world press freedom by indicting and jailing a non-U.S. citizen and journalist for five-plus years while seeking their extradition. A plea deal, however, ‘does not create a legal precedent,’ as U.S. constitutional lawyer Bruce Afran told Consortium News. By fighting back against this political case, Assange and the movement that supported him successfully dodged a much worse outcome.”
Michael Ellsberg commented: “My father would have cried tears of joy today — I wish he’d lived an extra year to see this and to give Julian a hug. Blessings to the Assange family. Here is Daniel’s final interview on Assange, with Kevin Gosztola.“