Julian Assange’s plea deal sparks global celebration, condemnation
“Reactions were divided as WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange heads to a U.S. Pacific territory to cement a plea deal that could soon set him free.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s tentative plea deal with the United States, which could soon bring an end to his yearslong international legal saga, drew celebration and criticism, reflecting the divisive nature of his role in obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents.
While Assange’s supporters saw him as a courageous whistleblower of government misdeeds, his critics saw him as a self-promoter oblivious to the harm that his leaks might cause. WikiLeaks’ publication of the Afghan War Logs, for example, was done with little vetting to obscure the names of Afghan civilians who had provided information to the U.S. military, an omission that dismayed human rights groups and U.S. national security officials.
Hours after news of Assange’s expected release broke on Monday evening Eastern time, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told lawmakers that there was nothing to be gained by Assange’s continued imprisonment.
“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by his office.
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“We want him brought home to Australia,” Albanese said.
But former vice president Mike Pence tweeted his opposition to the plea deal, saying the Assange’s actions had risked U.S. national security and service members’ lives.
“Julian Assange endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Pence said. “The Biden administration’s plea deal with Assange is a miscarriage of justice and dishonors the service and sacrifice of the men and women of our Armed Forces and their families.”
Assange’s plane departed London on Monday for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, stopping in Bangkok on Tuesday for a layover. He is expected to attend a court hearing in Saipan, the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, at 9 a.m. local time Wednesday (7 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday), the Justice Department said in a letter filed Monday evening.
Assange is expected to plead guilty to a single charge of espionage before he returns to his home country of Australia, the DOJ letter said, indicating that he will be sentenced to the 62 months he has already spent imprisoned in London.
On Tuesday, Assange’s wife, Stella, told BBC radio: “I’m just elated, frankly, it’s incredible — it feels like it’s not real.”
She said Assange’s release had been “touch and go” and only in the last 24 hours became certain that it was “actually happening.”
Stella Assange said she was limited in what she could say publicly about the plea deal, but confirmed that it concerned one count under the U.S. Espionage Act, and that her husband would plead guilty to it.
“The important thing here is that the deal involved time served, so if he signs it he is able to walk free,” she said, adding that the deal would eventually be made public, without giving further details.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said June 25 that there was nothing to be gained by keeping WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange incarcerated. (Video: Reuters)
James Ball, an early WikiLeaks employee who left after three months at the organization, said that neither Assange nor the United States “can really call this a win.”
“Many journalists — myself included — and many who are no fans of Assange said the prosecution was a risk to press freedom. A plea deal doesn’t change that, and is something Assange would only agree through sheer necessity,” he tweeted.
Ball theorized that the plea deal was a “practical choice” for Assange, who has spent years in exile and prison, and for the United States “a chance to save face given Assange’s sentence would likely be shorter than time served.”
The choice of the hearing in the Northern Mariana Islands was made “in light of the defendant’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States to enter his guilty plea and the proximity” of the islands to Australia, the DOJ said in its Monday letter.
Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who founded the Intercept before leaving it in 2021, characterized Assange as “the most consequential, and courageous, journalist of his generation.”
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, appeared to welcome the news, describing Assange as a “good man, finally free.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Assange’s “liberation is great news, but it’s a travesty that he’s already spent so much time in jail.”
“Pardon Snowden,” he added, referring to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked information about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs and is wanted by Washington on espionage charges. Snowden is currently living in exile in Russia.
In a statement, WikiLeaks said Assange left London’s Belmarsh Prison on Monday morning “after more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day.”
His departure from the United Kingdom was “the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum,” the group added.
“WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know,” WikiLeaks said.
Stella Assange told BBC radio she had yet to tell her two sons, ages 5 and 7, they will be reunited with their father, whom they have only spent time with while he’s been incarcerated.
“All I told them was that there’s a big surprise,” she said.“
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