Julian Assange is still facing extradition and charges of violating the Espionage Act
for exposing the US military's war crimes. You know, this story has always bothered me so badly
because, you know, the people love to, he's a criminal. He did these terrible things. He raped
a girl, which proved to be completely nonsense. Yeah.
That was years ago and they said no. No, he didn't. As a matter of fact, it was, that was
created by the spook industry. The spook industry created that story to discredit him. Pick this up
and how dangerous the Espionage Act is, and how if they use it against him, we're in big trouble.
Yeah. We are. Listen, you know, people love him or hate him. It doesn't matter your personal feelings
about him at all. What we're talking about here is journalism itself at risk. And Julian
Assange is, is currently facing extradition to the United States. They want to charge him under
the Espionage Act, which could put him in prison forever until he, till he dies. And the Espionage
Act is not supposed to be for whistleblowers exposing problems with our own US military.
But that's a hundred percent of what they're doing with it.
Yes, it is. And that's, that's what we're hearing from past whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg.
Yeah. Has now had to
come out. Noam Chomsky is coming out and they are sounding the alarm bells about what could happen,
should Assange come over here and be convicted, because that is going to be the death blow for
what's left of journalism in this country. Howard Zinn was talking about this his entire
career. He said, this is getting ready to happen. He even described what the legislation would look
like. It looked like the Espionage Act. Now let's talk about these horrible things he did. First,
he, he disclosed that the feds were spying on US citizens. That's one of the bad things he did. The
other thing he did is he was the first to disclose that, that dozens of purely dirty tricks by the
US were being pulled off all around the globe and he pointed 'em out. He said, this is what
happened in this country. This is what happened in this country. Here are the people that were
responsible. That's another terrible thing he did. The other thing he did is he was the first
to disclose the remarkable impact that the feds were having on controlling the media. You know,
so, so the media attacked him. They didn't like that. That, that's terrible. How dare you do
that. He was first to disclose the indiscriminate use of drone bombs that were killing civilians.
Yeah. God, what a criminal he is. You know, let's
put him in prison. He was the first to disclose the details about George Bush and Dick Cheney and
how they lied and hustled us into the Iraq War. Sounds like a criminal to me, doesn't he? I can't
even get my arms around it. And Biden comes out and says, you know, one of the first thing he, you
know, Biden's big thing, this is a quote from him. Our freedom is dependent on free un, unregulated
information flowing through the press. Right? Yeah. And, and they still, they will not drop
the charges. They want him to come and stand trial. And the charges were actually brought by
the Trump administration. The Trump DOJ after, you know, Trump had kind of made it seem like
he wasn't gonna do anything. You know, we were gonna forgive him or whatever. And then nope,
they move forward full steam ahead. Biden has not reversed that course at all. And again,
we are not talking about this man releasing, oh, here's all these secrets the United States has.
These are the things I'm talking, this is what he released.
Exactly. He's, he's talking about here are some war
crimes that we've committed. Yeah.
Here are some other atrocities that our government is committing by manipulating the media.
Yeah. You know, these are things the public needs
to know about. 20, well, not 20, 40 years ago he'd have been a hero, much like Daniel Ellsberg,
but now public enemy number one for both the right and the left, depending on where you are that day.
But this is an attack on journalism itself. It is. And you know, the problem, Farron,
you and I talk about the this all the time. If, if investigative journalism is dead, which it is,
tell me last time you saw a CNN investigative report that meant anything. That wasn't driven
by corporate. It's dead. I mean, it, it, it's, you can't find investigative journalism unless you
look at independent media like the sources that we rely on. So it's dead. The Espionage Act doesn't,
would've had Daniel Ellsberg in prison to this day. He'd still be in prison. We would never know
that, that Richard Nixon was bombing Cambodia. Completely contrary to what his, what he should
have been doing. We would've never known the truth about what was happening in Vietnam. We would've
never known that that whole thing was based on absolute lies. Daniel Ellsberg is the person
that put that out there. Under the, under this act, he would be in prison right now to this day.
Exactly. And that's what we have to be concerned about. I mean, hell even, you know, Bernstein and
Woodward, maybe they would've been in prison too for exposing Watergate at this point.
Think about it. Because we're not,
it's not just that journalism is dead. It's that the, the feds are trying to make it criminal.
Yeah. That's what it is.
But why isn't the New York Times, why aren't they locking up the New York Times of the Washington
Post? They're disclosing this information. You know, they're, they're saying, yeah,
well we're gonna publish this. Yeah.
Why aren't they part of the problem, you see? But it's easier to go after this guy and,
you know, make these stories about how what a terror, the movie they made about him was
just, it was atrocious. And then you find out, well, who funded the movie? Well go,
go follow that story. We ought to do a story on that. Tell the whole story about Ellsberg.
But you know, the point is, it's Kafka. Franz Kafka had it right in his, he wrote a great
book called The Trial. Everybody should read it. I know you've read it. You're probably one
of the most read political commentators I know. But everybody needs to understand that's what's
happening here. It's, it's Kafka as, as we're watching this unfold, and nobody seems to give a.