Good for him - he’s less innocent than folks like Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden but a heavy prosecution of him would definitely have a chilling effect on whistle-blowers. Did he release things at politically convenient times? Yes. Should that be illegal? Fuck no.
2016 Assange was a very different person than who he was in 2009. The espionage charges relating to the Chelsea Manning leaks were always bogus, but his involvement with the Trump campaign solidified him as a huge asshole in my mind.
Even back then, WikiLeaks was telling trump to claim the election was rigged and stolen. These are not the actions of a whistleblower, and it’s clear he was not a whistleblower (or working with whistleblowers) during this period and likely a mouthpiece for Russia to sow division in the US.
Agreed. Assange is not the good guy in this. No one is in this.
Meanwhile, they have an orange beanbag presidential hopeful spilling the beans to the whoever around the world and he gets millions of dollars of support, literal legal immunity from anything and 1/3 of the country want him to become their Cheeto leader in Mountain Dew.
That’s because that orange beanbag seated three associate justices of the Supreme Court, 54 judges for the courts of appeals, 174 district court judges, and three judges for the United States Court of International Trade.
Even worse, citizens want to let him do it again.
To be fair, Biden has seated almost as many judges in his term, so that has balanced out at the lower levels. With the very important exception of the Supreme Court.
There’s also the important point of Biden not committing crimes, like those that the commenter mentioned, and having those charges heard by one of his own appointed judges. Appeals from Trump’s other cases can potentially end up with one of his appointed appeals court judges, or ultimately be heard by the newly conservative Supreme Court, as you pointed out.
I mentioned it because that’s the notable difference between Assange’s and Trump’s ability to live above the law.
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