The possibility of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange getting extradited to
the United States has become more likely as the United States government has
won its appeal of a British court's ruling that would have barred that
extradition from happening.
So Assange is facing espionage charges in the United States
in response to his decision to publish leaked classified
documents that were provided by Chelsea Manning.
A lower court had ruled in January that Assange would be at risk of suicide or
other harm if held in American custody.
But following reassurances by US authorities that he would be held in
the most strict confinement, a judge found that Assange can be extradited on
the charges related to his publishing of classified State Department documents.
This is terrible news and
it shows the weakness in the British courts ruling on this extradition.
Because it wasn't about protecting journalism or preventing
the United States from pursuing SP and Hush charges against Julian Assange for
simply publishing incredibly important information for the world to know about.
It was just about we're worried that he's going to be harmed in
the awful US Prison system and obviously here in this update,
all the US government really needed to do was argue.
No, no, no, don't worry.
We'll take care of him.
Everything will be okay.
And apparently that was enough of an argument for
the courts decide with the United States.
Now, In a statement given after the ruling, Assange, his fiancee,
said that the ruling was dangerous and misguided and
that the US assurances about the conditions of Assange's confinement
once stateside could not be considered reliable.
And I completely agree with her on that, especially when you consider the treatment
of Chelsea Manning when she was imprisoned for leaking the information to WikiLeaks,
she was held in solitary confinement, tortured, it was awful.
And so I don't believe the United States at all when they say, don't worry about
it, we'll treat them totally fair, totally fine, he'll be all right now.
Doctors have testified that Assange suffers from severe depression and
other mental illnesses triggered by the years he has spent on the run from
the US government and that he would be at grave risk of suicide of extradite if
extradited to the United States.
And yes, I have a lot more details to share with you guys.
But Genk, I wanted you to jump in.
>> Yeah, so three things here to start with.
Number one, the UK should have never agreed to any of this.
So look, here's one easy way to tell if Saudi Arabia said, no, that's okay,
extradite.
By the way, maybe a Washington Post olumnist who writes
terrible things or tough critique of the Saudi royal prince
extradite him to Saudi Arabia where he violated a law here.
He did espionage, which, by the way, the Saudi government did actually say.
And don't worry, we'll treat him just fine.
The UK should not extradite him.
That's absurd.
And am I comparing America to Saudi Arabia?
Yes, I am.
First of all, were the people who let Saudi Arabia do that and
had no consequence for them at all.
Said well, there are beloved allies that make us rich.
Donald Trump did that, by the way, Joe Biden hasn't done anything to fix it.
>> Exactly. >> And so well,
how do I know American government will do terrible things to Assange?
Well, this is the Chelsea Manning case.
They already did terrible things to Chelsea Manning.
They put her in isolation.
They stripped her naked.
They did different, things, including isolation,
which are considered torture by international law and by UK law.
So UK should, by that I don't think the UK should extradite anybody in
the United States as long as we keep doing torture like isolation.
Okay, solitary confinement is especially at the great
degree that we do it in America.
The length at which we do it is definitely torture.
And so but on this particular case, we've already proven that we torture people
in this case, so I'd be insane to extradite.
So if you're a UK citizen,
you should be furious at your own government who apparently hates the press.
And I can't wait for Assange to get tortured by America.
Okay, now, if you're in the American government well,
obviously we know our officials are the worst, right?
They already did to Chelsea Manning.
What did Assange do anything in this case?
Nothing at all.
Okay, he did journalism.
It's the same thing as the Pentagon papers.
The same thing The New York Times did back in during the during Nixon's reign and
the Vietnam War and
The New York Times is celebrated because they're mainstream media.
When Assange does it criminal, like espionage.
Get him, torture him, take out the pitchforks.
Look, some of the press has been good in defending Assange,
but overall, their level of >> Disdained?
>> Like their level of fighting back against a particularly
Democratic administrations has been terrible.
So right now, every question Jen Psaki is getting should be wait.
Does the Biden administration respect freedom of press or don't you?
Because if he goes to jail for that, any whistleblower and
any journalist that covers a whistleblower can go to jail.
So are you going to imprison this entire room?
That's an easy and obvious question that should be asked of Jen Psaki.
But there aren't very many real reporters in that room, if any.
And so no one bothers to ask it.
Democrats, Obama and Biden when you destroy freedom of the press,
it's wonderful because you're a Democrat doing it.
On the other hand, by the way, a lot of fake new Assange fans,
because they think, he helps trump, et cetera.
Well, where's Trump?
He was in charge for four years.
>> Yeah, let me give some context, because that's a good point.
And I want to provide context that I think will help people understand that there
are government officials who understand the first A Amendment ramifications to
prosecuting Assange for espionage.
Now, first, let's back up for a second right, because I mentioned
the Chelsea Manning leaks and how WikiLeaks published those leaks.
Those were newsworthy leaks.
And they embarrassed the United States government and military.
Which is exactly why the United States is going after Julian Assange.
WikiLeaks helped uncover evidence of civilian killings carried out by us troops
during the war in Iraq, including shocking video footage of the crew of an apache
helicopter killing Reuters journalists and others during a 2007 attack in Baghdad.
So there's a little context for you.
Now during the Obama administration, of course,
there was consideration in going after Assange for espionage, but
ultimately the Obama administration decided against it,
knowing that there were constitutional issues at play.
So, for instance, Matthew Miller, former chief spokesperson for
the Justice Department under the Obama administration,
told Politico that the Obama administration declined to
pursue an indictment of Assange out of concern for the press freedom.
Precedent and doubts about whether charges would hold up in court.
Now Obama's administration decided against going after Assange.
And then in comes Donald Trump,
who decided I'm going full steam ahead, going after Assange.
We want to extradite him to the United States.
We want to try him for espionage.
But Trump is no longer in office.
His administration is no longer in power.
So the question is, why is Biden continuing on with the awful and
dangerous policies and precedents set by the Trump administration?
Why would you do that knowing full well that when you were vice president
under the Obama administration, they decided against going after Assange
because of the fact that it had first amendment violations involved.
>> Yeah, well,
there's again a couple of things that number one Obama is half full of crap.
Any one of these administrations could have said Assange did nothing wrong.
We will not pursue a period, end of investigation, end of this entire issue.
Obama didn't do that.
He did a usual Obama half measure.
Okay, by the way, Obama did use espionage act against other great journalist.
So Obama generally on this issue was terrible.
Don't listen to mainstream media liars who kisses ask for a living.
The great Obama, know he would have put you in prison if he'd actually done your
job and did uncovered a story that embarrassed the Obama administration.
>> He was notoriously awful when it came to whistleblowers,
including whistleblowers like Edward Snowden.
>> Yes, nd by the way, this the stuff that Chelsea Manning and
Assange uncovered happened during the Bush administration.
So that's why Obama goes well, I'm not going to protect them, but
at the same time, I won't use the espionage Act, but
if you did it during my administration espionage Act.
How dare you embarrass me?
Okay, that's Obama.
Keep it real at the end.
He did pardon Chelsea Manning.
We should give that context so he at least at half things right.
Okay, Trump came and did nothing right.
Nothing.
All those pardons, to all those white collar criminals.
You ripped off millions of dollars.
Billions of dollars pardon, pardon.
You're one of these corrupt criminals that is helping Donald Trump pardon, pardon?
You ripped off Trump's own supporters like Steve Bannon, did build a fake wall,
keep the money.
Instead, laugh and laugh about how you're using it for yachts.
Pardon, Assange no pardon.
No pardon.
Do not ever invest the government, especially if Trump's in charge.
By the way, I mean look, I'll hear diverge here for an important point.
There's a lot of people not pretending to be Assange fans.
I'd be super curious to see what they would do if Assange ever leak
something about the Trump government that embarrassed Trump.
My guess is all those Assange supporters would instantly go no, he's terrible.
He's working with this and that Russia, Russia, Russia.
They turn on Assange in a second because they don't actually care about freedom of
the press.
They're just trying to find ways to support Trump and Republicans, right?
So now I've got my own issues with what Assange did later in his career,
where he paid bounties for stories and I don't know if he did selective leaking,
but he would say that he has things and not publish them, and I couldn't tell if
he was just publishing everything or holding things back for political reasons.
But that does not affect this case at all.
That's point number one.
He did nothing wrong in this case.
And yes, people do different things at different times.
You might have done something right then and something wrong later.
Use your mind.
Use your judgment, okay?
And but by the way,
anything that Assange might have done where I disagree with it or
you disagree with it later in his career that also shouldn't put anyone in prison.
You might disagree with his journalistic ethics, but
that has nothing to do with putting him in prison.
Hell, no.
Look at this point I think, all right, I don't even want to get into
the clowns on the right anyways, so back to what should actually happen.
What they're gonna do is they're gonna bring him here, and every charge against
the signs so far seems to be a complete and utter fabrication.
Remember when Sweden was so concerned and and and they, of course,
what were the charges against him?
They were related to sex.
If you want to do character assassination, always do it about sex that worked
on Eliot Spitzer worked on almost everyone involved.
And so Assange, what's the first thing they said?
Sex.
My God. He does something wrong and etcetera.
And then when you defend him yeah, well, yeah,
of course you're doing it because of the sex crimes, et cetera.
It's a classic character assassination done by the United States government.
And yes, oftentimes.
And especially in that case, even abetted by the mainstream media.
>> Yep.
>> Okay, so Trump was horrible on this.
Biden this terrible on this.
Don't listen to anyone in mainstream media or
right wing media pretending that they both sides weren't awful on this issue and
just want to protect their own power and destroy freedom of the press.