Biden administration needs to do better

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus wept

Former California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher confirmed in a new interview that during a three-hour meeting at the Ecuadorian Embassy in August 2017, he told Julian Assange he would get President Trump to give him a pardon if he turned over information proving the Russians had not been the source of internal Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks.

In a phone interview with Yahoo News, Rohrabacher said his goal during the meeting was to find proof for a widely debunked conspiracy theory: that WikiLeaks’ real source for the DNC emails was not Russian intelligence agents, as U.S. officials have since concluded, but former DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered on the streets of Washington in July 2016 in what police believe was a botched robbery.

  Yahoo

Why is Rohrabacher admitting it?  Did Assange have a recording?

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately denounced the claim about a pardon discussion with Assange as a “complete fabrication,” adding that the president “barely knows Dana Rohrabacher” and has “never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. The barely knew him defense.

Rohrabacher said that not only did talk of a Trump pardon take place during his meeting, but he also followed up by calling then White House chief of staff John Kelly to discuss the proposal. He did not, however, ever speak to Trump about it, he said.

“I spoke to Julian Assange and told him if he would provide evidence about who gave WikiLeaks the emails I would petition the president to give him a pardon,” Rohrabacher said. “He knew I could get to the president.”

Oh, well, that's different.

When he spoke to Kelly, the then chief of staff was “courteous” but made no commitment that he would even raise the matter directly with the president. “He knew this had to be handled with care,” Rohrabacher said, and that it could be spun by the news media in ways that would be “harmful” to the president. In fact, Rohrabacher said he never heard anything further from Kelly about the matter, nor did he ever discuss the subject directly with Trump.

Any bets on whether Rohrabacher got a message from a Trump henchman after Assange made the claim of what to say to the press?

Or is the fact that Dana Rohrabacher is a total twit the simple answer?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A pardon before the charges?

Assuming this is true, and there's little reason to doubt it, the Trump cabal might be that blatant, but Assange is surely smarter than that.  After all, he hasn't been extradicted to the US (he has a hearing in England next week for the first part of a 2-part hearing that will be held over until May), and even if that eventually happens, Trump might not honor the deal, and he might not even be president by the time it comes around.  Rohrabacher and Trump were offering something that didn't exist.

And although Kevin McCarthy would hope for it, we haven't forgotten...

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” Kevin McCarthy, the second-ranking House Republican, told his colleagues during [a 2016] meeting. Some of those colleagues then laughed, and McCarthy added: “Swear to God.”

  NYT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  The hilarity continues.

Another very excellent podcast from Jeremy Scahill

click here

Deconstructing America

Also, at 47:00, discussion of Nancy Pelosi.

New charges against Assange

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another enlightening podcast from Jeremy Scahill

Check out this week's podcast.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

If you're interested in more on Erik Prince:

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/erik-prince-trump-uae-project-veritas/

Yet further thoughts on the Assange indictment

This from former federal prosecutor and current defense attorney Renato Mariotti.

Today Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London today on a charge that he conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to commit computer intrusion by hacking the password of a Pentagon server. Link to indictment: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download …

This indictment does not implicate press freedom in any way. It is a crime for any person, whether you sell hotdogs or write for newspapers, to agree to help someone hack into a protected computer server in the United States. I prosecuted non-journalists for that crime myself.

There has been a lot of speculation that the U.S. would indict Assange merely for distributing classified material. You have heard a lot of concern about that, and it is justified. Many legitimate press publications in the U.S. distribute classified material at times.

But this indictment does not implicate that at all. No reporter should try to help sources hack into servers. So what does this mean for Assange? He'll try to fight extradition and likely fail. That's important, because once he's in the U.S., DOJ has more leverage over him.

The big question on my mind is whether DOJ will add more charges once they get him in the U.S., and what type of charges they will be. @Popehat has written an excellent thread that details how the US-UK extradition treaty could potentially limit the charges DOJ could add.

He's right, but the UK government could decide to let the U.S. do whatever it wants, and they [have] an incentive to keep the U.S. government happy. Also, the facts underlying the existing charge could be construed broadly to permit a variety of charges even over their objection.

If Assange faces only trial on the narrow crime in the existing indictment, the case is not a slam dunk for the DOJ. They have to prove a criminal conspiracy between Manning and Assange, and Manning does not appear to be cooperative.

But there is no question a jury (or a judge, if Assange elects a bench trial, which he should consider) would take seriously allegations that Assange helped an Army analyst hack into Pentagon files. He is in a difficult position even without any additional charges added.

Assange's legal team has some difficult choices coming up. One obvious option for him is to try to cooperate with the DOJ in exchange for a reduced sentence. Presumably he knows a lot of things that would assist the DOJ. Cooperating could be his best alternative.

Ooops

UPDATE:

Just because I really like this response

Further thoughts on Assange charges

That's a good, arguable point.  However, I think, like the Al Capone charges, the US is using the computer hacking conspiracy charges to nail Assange, when what they really cared about was the leaking of the embarrassing classified material.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Further further thoughts.

"Our property"

Speaking of deplorables:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Thursday celebrated the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying that it will "be really good to get him back on United States soil."

"He's our property. We can get the facts and the truth from him," Manchin added during an interview on CNN's "New Day."

  The Hill

Does Manchin know Assange is an Australian?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

From a virtual prison to a real one

Has Julian been turning into Howard Hughes?

The United States has requested the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, after he was arrested at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The Metropolitan police said the arrest was made on behalf of the US authorities.

[...]

Police were videoed forcibly removing Assange, from the Ecuadorian embassy, at around at around 10.50am. Police had been invited into the embassy by the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange had take refuge for almost seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation.

  Guardian

Actually, he was there to avoid being extradicted from Sweden to the US, which he knew would happen.

The president of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, [j]ustifying the move handing him over to the British police, [...] said: “In a sovereign decision Ecuador withdrew the asylum status to Julian Assange after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life- protocols.” [He] said he secured guarantees from the UK that Assange would not face the death penalty or torture.

Which Moreno knows means absolutely nothing when he's extradicted to the US.

Rafael Correa, who was Ecuadorian president when Assange was granted asylum, accused his successor of treachery.

[...]

Journalist and ex-lawyer Glenn Greenwald, who worked at the Guardian at the time of the Edward Snowden leaks, said US attempts to extradite Assange were “extremely chilling”.

Speaking to Democracy Now he said: The idea that the US government can just extend its reach to any news outlet anywhere in the world and criminalize publication of documents … is extremely chilling.”

Some it just shoots.

Patricio Mary, [a reporter from Chile’s el Ciudadano], said he had wanted to ask ambassador, Jaime Martín, about promises he had made to respect Assange’s asylum.

“Ecuadorian police pushed me and tried to fight with me,” he said. “We started shouting traitor and liar because when I interviewed him two days ago he told me there was no change with the position of Julian Assange and that the government of Lenín Moreno will respect international law.”

He said the Ecuadorians had breached their own sovereignty by inviting British police into their embassy. It was symbolic of the way the Ecuadorian government had treated journalists in their own country, where Moreno had shut down opposing newspapers and betrayed an incipient socialist revolution, he said.

The Home Office has confirmed the US request for Assange’s extradition is for an alleged “computer-related offence”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.

“He is accused in the United States of America computer-related offences.”

So, not of leaking secrets? Very interesting.

From the DOJ statement:

Assange is charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the US sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

The extradition will be handled by the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium after leading the region’s failed bid to secede from Spain in autumn 2017, also offered Assange his support.

“I am deeply shocked by the arrest of Julian Assange in London,” he tweeted. “Human rights, and especially freedom of expression, are under attack once again in Europe.”

[...]

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has issued a longer statement on Assange’s arrest.

He said:

“What we’ve shown today is that no one is above the law. Julian Assange is no hero. He has hidden from the truth for years and years and it is right that his future should be decided in the British judicial system. What’s happened today is the result of years of careful diplomacy by the Foreign Office and I commend particularly our ambassador in Ecuador and Sir Alan Duncan and his team here in London for their work. But it is also a very courageous decision from President Moreno in Ecuador to resolve this situation that has been going on for nearly seven years. I mean it’s not so much Julian Assange being held hostage in the Ecuadorian Embassy, it’s actually Julian Assange holding the Ecuadorian Embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them. So this will now be decided properly, independently by the British legal system respected throughout the world for its independence and integrity and that is the right outcome.

“We have been talking to Ecuador for a very long time about how to resolve this situation. We are a law-abiding country and we will always uphold the law so we have to follow all the international rules in a situation like this. But there was a change of leadership in Ecuador. President Moreno took a courageous decision, which has meant we were able to resolve the situation today. We’re not making any judgment about Julian Assange’s innocence or guilt, that is for the courts to decide. But what is not acceptable is for someone to escape facing justice and he has tried to do that for a very long time and that is why he is no hero.”

[...]

A preliminary investigation [in Sweden] can be resumed as long as the suspected crime is not subject to a statute of limitation, the prosecutor added. In this case, the suspected crime of rape would be subject to a statute of limitation in mid-August 2020.

[...]

Multiple sources at UK broadcasters suggested there had been a pool agreement – where the BBC, ITN and Sky News take turns to provide a camera outside the embassy and agree to share any footage – from 5 April onwards. However, this was abandoned at the weekend when news editors concluded Assange would not be leaving imminently, meaning British broadcasters failed to capture the key moment.

[...]

The dramatic footage of a white-bearded Julian Assange being carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by British police officers was captured by a camera operator from the news agency Ruptly, a subsidiary of the Russian government-backed news service RT.

The Berlin-based agency, which has carved out a niche in live-streaming events that others ignore, such as protests and public disorder, has maintained a 24-hour watch on the embassy since 5 April according to Laura Lucchini, the head of Ruptly’s newsroom.

[...]

They now have a global scoop, with the potential to make substantial sums from licensing the footage around the world.

[...]

Embarrassingly, British television stations are now having to rely on footage from a Russian government-backed news organisation to cover an event which took place on their own backyard in central London.

  Guardian

UPDATE:



UPDATE:

That's a good, arguable point.  However, I think, like the Al Capone charges, the US is using the computer hacking conspiracy charges to nail Assange, when what they really cared about was the leaking of the embarrassing classified material.

Time running out for Assange?

ECUADOR’S PRESIDENT Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been using a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the president’s trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.

[...]

Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador’s decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange’s tweets about Catalonia.

A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the president’s office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to The Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the U.K. within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week.

[...]

Even under the best-case scenario, it appears highly likely that Assange will continue to be imprisoned by British authorities.

[...]

THE FAR MORE IMPORTANT question that will determine Assange’s future is what the U.S. government intends to do. The Obama administration was eager to prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents, but ultimately concluded that there was no way to do so without either also prosecuting newspapers such as the New York Times and The Guardian, which published the same documents, or creating precedents that would enable the criminal prosecution of media outlets in the future.

Indeed, it is technically a crime under U.S. law for anyone — including a media outlet — to publish certain types of classified information.

[...]

But the U.S. Justice Department has never wanted to indict and prosecute anyone for the crime of publishing such material, contenting themselves instead to prosecuting the government sources who leak it. Their reluctance has been due to two reasons: First, media outlets would argue that any attempts to criminalize the mere publication of classified or stolen documents is barred by the press freedom guarantee of the First Amendment, a proposition the DOJ has never wanted to test; second, no DOJ has wanted as part of its legacy the creation of a precedent that allows the U.S. government to criminally prosecute journalists and media outlets for reporting classified documents.

  Glenn Greenwald

Yeah, well, there's a new sheriff in town.

Last April, Trump’s then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now his secretary of state, delivered a deranged, rambling, highly threatening broadside against WikiLeaks. Without citing any evidence, Pompeo decreed that WikiLeaks is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” and thus declared: “We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.”

Except when it puts their man in office, he means.

Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions has similarly vowed not only to continue and expand the Obama DOJ’s crackdown on sources, but also to consider the prosecution of media outlets that publish classified information.

[...]

And it was Democratic senators such as Dianne Feinstein who, during the Obama years, were urging the prosecution of WikiLeaks, with the support of numerous GOP senators.

[...]

All of this means that it is highly likely that Assange — under his best-case scenario — faces at least another year in prison, and will end up having spent a decade in prison despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime. He has essentially been punished — imprisoned — by process.

And while it is often argued that Assange has only himself to blame, it is beyond doubt, given the grand jury convened by the Obama DOJ and now the threats of Pompeo and Sessions, that the fear that led Assange to seek asylum in the first place — being extradited to the U.S. and politically persecuted for political crimes — was well-grounded.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More fodder for an eventual counter lawsuit by Assange

Email exchanges between the CPS and its Swedish counterparts over the high-profile case were deleted after the lawyer at the UK end retired in 2014.

The destruction of potentially sensitive and revealing information comes ahead of a tribunal hearing in London next week.

Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

The CPS, responding to questions from the Guardian, denied there were any legal implications of the data loss for an Assange case if it were to come to court in the future.

  Guardian

Ha.

In case you're wondering: why Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

These People Are Just Plain Nuts

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said Monday that a "rendezvous" is being set up between him and President Donald Trump to relay information he received from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the hack of the Democratic National Committee last year.

Rohrabacher [...] claims Assange told him that Russia was not involved in the hacking.

  CNN

Rohrabacher apparently doesn't yet understand that Mueller is going after the serious shit and the DNC hack is way, way down on the serious shit list.

Rohrabacher said after the meeting that he wanted to brief Trump on what Assange told him. Appearing on the Sean Hannity radio show Monday afternoon, the California congressman said that meeting was in the process of being set up.

"It is my understanding from other parties who are trying to arrange a rendezvous with myself and the President, it is being arranged for me to give him the firsthand information from (Assange)," Rohrabacher said.

How very cloak and dagger. WTF? A Congressman couldn't just call up the president and talk to him?

Earlier in the interview, Rohrabacher said evidence he saw painted the Democratic National Committee hack being an "inside job," a claim Rohrabacher has made before.

[...]

"If the information comes out, there will be an outrage among the American people that their time has been wasted," Rohrabacher said.

Or maybe they'll just be outraged that YOU'RE wasting their time.

"I'm trying to get this out in the public now where we can get this Julian Assange thing straightened out so that people know that it wasn't the Russians that hacked into the system, and that's not how this information was released," he said.

Jackass, Mueller is taking care of it. He's not going to stop the investigation because Dana Rohrabacher says Julian Assange told him who did the hacking. In fact, he's without a doubt got Rohrabacher on his list of people to investigate in the whole shebang.

Jesus Christ. What an idiot. And why, please why, would Julian Assange tell Dana Rohrabacher something he wouldn't tell anyone else?

The White House did not return a request for comment on Rohrabacher's comments. Rohrabacher hung up on a CNN reporter who inquired about his comments.

Nut jobs. Our nation is beset by nut jobs.

Oh, like THAT wouldn't be a problem for Trump! A pardon for information?! Why not just admit he's been rigging the game all along?  Rohrabacher better lay low.  He's caught up in that Junior - Magnitsky affair himself already.  Perhaps he's lately feeling the Mueller presence breathing down his neck and he's panicking.

Remember when the FBI warned Dana Rohrabacher that he was stupid enough that the Russians were trying to recruit him?

Marci Wheeler has some thoughts on the idiot's claims that "other parties" are "trying to arrange the rendezvous" with Trump:

Not only do these other parties not have names, but ultimately, this meeting “is being arranged” like a loveless marriage.

You’d almost think Rohrabacher recognizes the legal problems here.

One wonders whether those nameless non-agents do?

  Emptywheel

Harley Rouda, a Democrat running against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) in 2018, has asked the FBI to probe the Republican congressman’s “political and financial ties to Russia” after Rohrabacher met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

  WaPo

Probably already being done. I'm sure the Mueller probe is doing it.

A Bit of Good News ... And Then More Bad News

Prosecutors in Sweden said on Friday that they would drop their investigation into Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who sought refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London five years ago after the authorities in Stockholm opened a preliminary rape inquiry against him.

[...]

[P]rosecutors felt that they had no choice but to abandon the investigation because they had concluded that Ecuador would not cooperate, and because all other possibilities had been exhausted.

[...]

The investigation could be reopened [...] if Mr. Assange returned to Sweden before August 2020, the time limit for prosecution specified by the statute of limitations.

[...]

The Metropolitan Police in London said, however, that they still planned to carry out the warrant issued after Mr. Assange failed to surrender in June 2012, and that they would be “obliged” to execute the warrant if he were to leave the Ecuadorean Embassy, where Mr. Assange sought asylum.

  NYT

It quoted the source saying: “Given that the European arrest warrant no longer holds, Ecuador will now be intensifying its diplomatic efforts with the UK so that Julian Assange can gain safe passage in order to enjoy his asylum in Ecuador.”

  Guardian

Ron Paul Interviews Julian Assange

Will Sweden Remain Bowed to US Demands?

Assange, 45, has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, after taking refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies.

He fears Sweden will in turn hand him over to the US to face prosecution over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leaks in US history.

Lawyer Per Samuelson says the US has now openly said it wants to arrest Assange. "Given that the US is obviously hunting him now, he has to make use of his political asylum and it is Sweden's duty to make sure that Sweden is no longer a reason for that fact he has to stay in the embassy," Samuelson said.

[...]

[He] has asked a Swedish court to rescind a detention order against the WikiLeaks founder over an alleged rape and allow him to go to Ecuador to be safe from extradition to the US.

[...]

"If they rescind the detention order, there is a possibility he can go to Ecuador and then he can use political asylum in an entire country."

  Au.News.Com

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Pompeo Warned Us

This is crap. See previous.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.