Like Barack Obama, who released Chelsea Manning just days before the end of his tenure in the White House, the Biden administration has struck a plea deal that will free the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange.
The news comes as another hacker group has claimed to have infiltrated the Federal Reserve.
NBC News writes:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released from a British prison and on his way to a remote Pacific island on Tuesday where he will plead guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department, according to court documents.
The agreement will free Assange and end the yearslong legal battle over the publication of a trove of classified documents.
Assange was charged by criminal information — which typically signifies a plea deal — with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, the court documents said.
A letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie said Assange would appear in court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S.-controlled territory north of Guam, at 9 a.m. local time Wednesday (7 p.m. ET Tuesday) to plead guilty.
Assange has been a controversial figure for over a decade after his website, Wikileaks, published classified documents from the NSA.
The Washington Examiner explains: “Celebrated by some as a crusading truth-teller, Julian Assange, a former Australian hacker, claimed the mantle of journalist after colluding with a troubled U.S. Army intelligence analyst in 2010 to steal and publish almost half a million classified U.S. government documents with no consideration of the damage to America’s national security or the lives of foreign nationals he endangered.
The founder of the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks never operated as a traditional news organization, instead dumping the entire cache of sensitive documents on his website, without review or context, furthering his philosophy that governments have no right to any secrets.“
Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. praised the news:
Julian Assange struck a plea deal and will go free! I am overjoyed. He’s a generational hero.
The bad news is that he had to plea guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense info. Which means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 24, 2024
As did Tucker Carlson:
A good man, finally free. The tide is turning. pic.twitter.com/oVCvzGvsPv
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 25, 2024
Former Vice President Mike Pence blasted Assange’s release:
“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 is expected to return to Australia.
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BRavo Victory for common Joe from censorship