Julian Assange is still not a journalist, and likely still is a Seth Rich liar, but he is going free

First, the second half of that header.

Per NBC, and many other news outlets, Assange has reached a plea deal with the US government. He is expected to appear in court at Tuesday evening US time, for the court of US territory Northern Marianas Islands, apparently in person. (AP's story notes that he left Britain earlier today.) He is expected to plea to "conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information." He will be sentenced to 62 months in that plea deal, which equates to "time served" at Belmarsh. Per US government court documents linked by NBC, the charges and the deal involve the Chelsea Manning material. (Waiting for whackjobs to snowflake over the government doc calling her "Chelsea.")

Now, per that first half of that header. (NOTE: The big questions to me, are the “WHY” and the related “WHY NOW.” For thoughts on that, go here.)

He's not a journalist. And, that's not the first time I said that. Yes, five years ago, I thought he was. And I was wrong. First, per various journalism societies, as articulated by former ProPublica editorial head Dick Teufel, while journalist may themselves commit crimes to obtain information — and have done so many times — they do NOT suborn other people to commit crimes on their behalf. And, Assange did that.

Update, June 26: Klippenstein has an "interesting" (but wrong, yes, rare for him) take on this. His angle seems to be that if Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ say Assange isn't a journalist, that automatically makes him one. He also seems to think that not being an American citizen immunized Assange from any espionage charges in a just world. It doesn't. He's not a traitor because he's not an American citizen, but it's laughable to think that any non-citizen of any country could not be tried under that country's espionage charges just because they're not an American citizen.  He is right that if Assange hasn't damaged national security (and I don't think he has to a great extent, at least) then there's the lack of probable cause issue, but that's different.

June 27: Chris Hedges is also wrong on the "he's a journo."

For both of these, as I've said before on the "not a journo" focus pieces, Assange deserves the same civil and legal rights anybody else in his situation would have deserved. But, the clause of the First Amendment that covers freedom of the press doesn't apply to him.

Also, neither Klippenstein nor Hedges cover Assange's ugly side. And, speaking of?

Second? He IS (and presumably still is) a Seth Rich conspiracy theorist. And, full of shit on that. Duncan Campbell busted the ass of the so-called Forensicator, Elizabeth Vos of Russia-stanning and more. His odiousness is almost matched by his odious toady, Craig Murray, who has indicated before that, by the end of 2016, Assange knew the theft provenance of those emails. 

And Jeff St. Clair of Counterpunch noted well the lunacy of "some of the more credulous precincts of the left" for believing Assange's claims. That said, more and more, I don't even consider many of those people "more credulous precincts of the left; I call them pseudoleftists. I'm not sure exactly where to put the likes of Mark Ames and Yasha Levine, who eventually proved to be full of shit with their mocking of "Cozy Bear," etc. But, that link, with the information that the Russians hacked into Republican National Committee as well as Democratic National Committee computers in the run-up to the 2016 election, is one of the key points in refuting all the Seth Rich conspiracy theory bullshit —

AND in showing just how odious Assange is.

And, as for "Russiagate" in general?

On approximate percentages? One-third is clearly false. I challenge any #BlueAnon to show me Donald Trump colluded or conspired with Russia, or that a Michael Flynn did so on Trump's behalf. One-third, contra the pseudoleftists, is true. Russia DID hack the DNC emails (and RNC ones, to the degree they got any). Russia DID do the fake Facebook groups for both Trump and Clinton, and other online bots and trolls. And, like Osama bin Laden with 9/11, got a LOT of bang for the buck. Who's running that show after Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, I don't know. The other one-third is a grayzone, but not Max Blumenthal's. As with details of the coronavirus at Wuhan Institute of Virology, we may never get the details. (And, those Julian Assange pleadings documents make no indication that he's supposed to reveal anything the US national security state doesn't already know.) Also don't forget that Sy Hersh's original Substack post about Nord Stream brought out scads of Seth Rich (and other) nutters.

Related, as #BlueAnon on Twitter talk about him as a "Russian asset"? It actually is possible. Note what I said above about Craig Murray. Note that Assange deliberately avoided helping Russia's version of Wikileaks. (He said nothing when Putin banned Proekt in 2021.) Note him and Edward Snowden. It was Assange who enticed him to go there in the first place.

Then, there's the people, both #BlueAnon and #NeverTrumper fellow travelers, who cut to the head of the line:

Assange is a traitor https://t.co/qppkD02MB8

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) June 25, 2024

As I told Kinzinger, as part of calling him an even Dummer Fuq than normal, Assange is not an American citizen and therefore, by definition, cannot be a traitor.

Hey, Snowden, how are you feeling now that cooling your heels in Moscow just got a little bit colder?

Finally, and always important? 

WHY?

Is Genocide Joe now Panderer Joe, hoping for votes? Just two months ago, the USofA looked sure to still want to extradite him, offering weasel words about his security. (NPR's story, along with NBC's, notes that the next hearings in this process were set for next month.)

Or, did Biden fear that a Labour landslide under Der Starmer (aka Keir Starmer and think about it) would finish putting this issue on the back burner again?

Or is this part of some backdoor deal for the release of arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich? If so, you heard it here first.

That said, neither of the non-pander "whys" make much sense.

On the Labour issue, Starmer and most the rest of non-Corbynite Labour (why doesn't he join Galloway's Respect?; that said, Corbyn himself ran as an independent this time) probably don't care that much more about Assange that Sunak and the rest of the Tories. (Assange's entire time in Belmarsh has been under Tory governments.) Starmer just cares about beating Sunak by as many seats as possible. (Update: Corbyn won, but Galloway, whose previous win was in a by-election, got buried.)

On the Gershkovich angle? Assange is yesterday's news to Vladimir Putin, who is as "transactional" about such things as Donald Trump.

But, off the top of my head, these are the only three "why" reasons that come to mind. 

Update, July 15: No "insider" has yet proposed an answer.

==

According to the Guardian, the US gummint charged half a million smackers to fly him from London to the Northern Marianas on a military jet. Could be true; could be Assange/Wikileaks bullshit. The story's main source is Kristin Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, ie, Assange's top in-house flunky.

Speaking of, I recommend Daniel Domscheit-Berg's "Inside WikiLeaks." I recommend it in part because even though it's not that close to perfect, it pisses off cultists.

That said, the Guardian also has the backdrop to why the Northern Marianas:

A sticking point in the deal had been the insistence from Washington that a US court had to hear Assange’s plea in person, and Assange’s aversion to appearing at a hearing in continental America. That was when the idea was raised of holding a hearing in a district court on Saipan, a former Japanese colony that was administered by the Americans after the war and became part of the US in 1986.

Makes sense.