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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

nbcnews.com

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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#71

Post by onionisafruit »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #60
tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Generally: lower court decisions don't create binding precedent. Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place.

"Generally" is one of those somewhat troubling terms on a case that has severe First Amendment implications, but that's good to know. >Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place. Those charges were (presumably) dropped as part of the plea, and his plea did not mention the…

What action is the court taking that you are worried about setting precedent? I haven’t read more than the linked article, but it appears the only role the court will play is accepting a plea deal.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#72

Post by rsingel »

9659 wrote: post #40
morkalork wrote: post #25

[flagged]

heard that he has a tax issue that he will be hit with as soon as he returns to the mother country.

Maybe related to the mysterious disappearing $200M+ in bitcoin donations supposed to go to Wikileaks?

"WikiLeaks wallets now contain only 3.265 BTC ($168,000) compared to 4,079 BTC total inflows. Overall, it appears Bitcoin users have donated $1.62 million in BTC to WikiLeaks since it opened donations 13 years ago. If held until today, that BTC would be worth $210 million.

As for what WikiLeaks does with its crypto donations, the group previously said the funds would pay for “WikiLeaks projects, staff, servers and protective infrastructure.” Last week, WikiLeaks made its first transaction in two years when it shifted 10.459 ETH ($31,200) to another address."

https://blockworks.co/news/julian-assange-extradition-wikile...

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#73

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #55
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In May, two judges on the High Court said he could have a full hearing on whether he would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national. A hearing on the issue of Assange's free speech rights had been scheduled for July 9-10. At the risk of sounding a tad conspiratorial, it's possible the U.S. agreed to this deal specifically to avoid the upcoming trial. As I understand it, there remains an…

It makes more sense that they agreed to the deal because Assange has spent 5 years in prison, which approaches or exceeds the likely sentence he would have received (even after applying the "TOP SECRET" sentence modifier) for a conspiracy liability charge. At some point there's no longer any purpose in pursuing the case. Later Moreso: assume Assange spends another year or two in UK prison, and then is extradited; the…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#75

Post by jjmarr »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38

How do plea deals work for precedent? As despite the constant claim that he was only being charged for assisting in hacking US computers, the plea deal is over violations of the Espionage Act specifically about receiving and publishing classified documents. Or basically his acts as a journalist. Can this be used to indict other journalists who receive and publish classified information? As if so, this feels like a hu…

Journalists generally avoid asking for classified information. The belief is that (in the US) a journalist that passively receives classified information & publishes it isn't committing a crime due to the First Amendment. The actual crime itself was committed by the person leaking the information.

Julian Assange actively solicited leaks of information. That's where the espionage claim comes from.

There's not much precedent on this though and making a plea deal avoids establishing one. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Generally, precedent is established when someone appeals their conviction, and a higher court determines that the conviction is lawful. Higher court decisions bind lower courts, so e.g. if a circuit appeals court says the law is "X", every district court within it has to agree.

Since generally, you wouldn't appeal a plea deal, there probably won't be legal precedent from this.

That being said, I wonder if the USA will informally say "we got Assange; we can get you" the next time a similar situation comes up.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#76

Post by rsingel »

mikemitchelldev wrote: post #3

What could he possibly do next (if he avoids a prison term)?

Get a gig with a Russian media outlet, again... See if Roger Stone has any work for him to do? See if GRU has any more deliveries it needs him to make?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-t...

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#80

Post by richrichie »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #78
pkaye wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He better be careful in Australia being a whistleblower. https://apnews.com/article/mcbride-whistleblower-court-priso...

[flagged]

There is no such thing as legal leak. Only if you leak for the right cause, which is typically to damage an inconvenient thorn of a person for the state apparatus. Then you are fine.
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