Judging Freedom - Anya Parampil : Julian Assange and Truth

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Anya Parampil : Julian Assange and TruthSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 26th, 2024. My dear friend Anya Parampil joins us now. Anya, a pleasure. Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. The week has been dominated by the American attack in Sevastopol, which killed Russian families and several children, and the release from Belmarsh prison of Julian Assange. I want to talk to you about both, but first and mainly about Julian. I have been arguing for years now that he is an American and an international hero because of the personal courage involved in what he revealed. How important to democracy, to transparency, to human freedom is it for what Julian Assange did? It's almost, I believe, impossible to quantify. I don't think

we've even lived through the full consequences of the truth that he revealed and the process he began when he founded WikiLeaks and eventually began leaking the darkest secrets of the United States government and its global intelligence apparatus. And that's why I love that you say human freedom, because that's what this is truly about. Let me give you an example of the impact that Assange had. Today, right now, as we speak, there is a military coup underway in Bolivia. And we at the Gray Zone, we're chatting about it. And the first thing Max said on our Gray Zone chat group is somebody should search the name of the individuals involved in this coup in Bolivia on WikiLeaks. And that has been pretty much one of our principal methods of operating at the gray zone. If we are dealing with a new political figure in any country around the

world where regime change or color revolutions are involved, one of the first steps as a journalist or researcher that we take or as a media outlet, as a group, is to look for that individual to see whether or not they're named in any WikiLeaks files. And it's really incredible because a lot of times we've been able to turn up incredible truths just simply thanks to that file. It's an endless trove that really is a gift that keeps on giving. And so another example of that is in my book, which I have right behind me there, Corporate Coup. And when Max and I were covering the coup in Venezuela several years back, there was an incident at their main dam that supplies hydroelectric power to the vast majority of

the country called the Gurri Dam. And at the time when this happened, the United States, even though Marco Rubio had predicted that Venezuela was about to experience unprecedented levels of suffering, the United States tried to say that this was all simply a product of Maduro's mismanagement or the Venezuelan government's incompetence, while Venezuela's government said, no, we actually detected explosions at this dam and we believe that we are victims of sabotage. At the time, Max had done other work on WikiLeaks files in Venezuela and remembered that he'd actually read a cable that came out as part of the Stratfor leak. Stratfor being a private intelligence firm that acts as a shadow CIA all around the world, writing documents and

dossiers for the US government and corporate clients on how to subvert US enemy states. And they'd actually produced a report saying that this dam in Venezuela needed, was key to fomenting a revolution in the streets, that because it was so vital, if there were sabotage at that dam, that the opposition could then capitalize on the mass suffering that would come with that mass power outage and result in regime change. And so that was a document that proved or at least proved that there was a discussion within the high echelons of intelligence in the United States to target that critical infrastructure. And Venezuela, based on their own internal reports, came to that conclusion. But maybe many in the U.S. may have not taken them seriously without that confirmation and window into how the U.S. security state operates. Right. And that's just one example. I mean, when it comes to the shadow networks, the NGO networks and these so-called grassroots organizations that exist all throughout the world that are really just fronts for the State Department, the CIA, and the National Endowment for Democracy, we know how those groups operate all because of WikiLeaks. That's just one example. Of course, there's the Vault 7 leaks that showed the CIA's capacity to spy using smartphones and smart TVs, creating a huge controversy with our allies in

Germany, as well as private corporations that realized they were the victims of illegal U.S. spying operations. And so all of this, all of this truth, and that's why actually the epigraph in my book is a quote from Julian Assange saying, if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth. And I think that is the message that Julian represents and why his freedom now is so inspiring for all of us who worked so dedicated to his cause because for them, the truth that he brought to light really changed the way they saw the world. And they realized that, look, this system that we're living under that maybe seems that we're all disconnected from is actually so, it's so entrenched in every aspect of our society. And the lies are so extreme that it's only light and only truth that can free any of us from this system that is clearly not working in the

interests of humankind. One of the most significant aspects of this persecution and prosecution, and most people watching us now are familiar with the history. The Bush administration was utterly humiliated at the war crimes that were revealed. One of the tapes that I ran back when I was at Fox and had my own show there also had audio on it. And even though management didn't want us to, we played the audio and it showed the members of the military laughing and joking at the civilians that had been murdered. They didn't know they were killing two journalists, but they knew they were killing civilians. They absolutely knew about it. They were indifferent to the death and suffering and even laughed about it.

One of the most significant aspects of this is the use of the Espionage Act to prosecute a journalist. We're not talking about prosecuting Bradley Manning. We're not talking about prosecuting Daniel Ellsberg. We're talking about the people who actually took the documents. We're talking about journalists whose job it is to expose this. Here is Barry Pollack. Barry is one of Julian's American lawyers. Barry is the one who negotiated with the DOJ and the Crown Prosecution Service. What a name, whatever, right? Service. He negotiated with these thugs in order to arrange to get Julian to give this phony guilty plea before an American court that nobody ever heard of so that he could be free in Australia.

But here he is making a very significant point. Barry Pollack. I think it's unprecedented in the United States to use the Espionage Act to criminally prosecute a journalist or a publisher. It's in the more than 100-year history of that law. It has never been used in this fashion. It is certainly our hope that it will never again be used in this fashion. Julian spent years in Belmarsh. No one should spend a day in prison

for giving the public newsworthy and important information, in this case, information that the United States government had committed war crimes, that there were civilian casualties exponentially greater than the United States government had admitted in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was definitely in the public's interest to have this information, and Julian provided it to the public. He performed a tremendous public service, not a crime. A tremendous public service, not a crime. A tremendous public service and not a crime. You are one of the more fearless journalists I know with your husband and with your collaborator,

Aaron Maté. Do you ever fear prosecution? If the answer is yes, you should never fear prosecution if the First Amendment means what it says. That's what I always say when asked that question. I don't fear because I've never broken a law and I believe in the Constitution and the rights granted to me as a U.S. citizen. That's why I believe in this country. That's why I fight for it to be better. And it is my opinion that this precedent with Julian's guilty plea is very dangerous for journalism and journalists more broadly. But if they're going to come for us, they're going to have to come for the New York Times and the Washington Post and just about any other media outlet worth its salt. So I actually told Gabriel Shipton, Julian's brother, the last time I saw him,

which was less than two months ago, I guess he was in DC to meet with the great Thomas Massey and others in Washington, hoping to push some sort of negotiation or deal along. But I believed in my heart that the US government could not risk bringing Julian here because then it's not an issue of him languishing in a British prison cell where, frankly, they don't have the rights that we have in the United States. That's why we fought a war and created our own constitution. They never really got out under the grip of their king, as exemplified by your statement there, the Royal Crown Service, whatever they want to call it over there. Very strange to me as an American to hear something like that. But I believe that if they brought him here, the pressure campaign that we've seen, I've witnessed here firsthand for years, like I said, hundreds, dozens of people

that would convene in D.C. to protest at the State Department, or I'm sorry, the, like I said, hundreds, dozens of people that would convene in D.C. to protest at the State Department, or I'm sorry, the Justice Department. A few years ago, those people convened a birthday party for Julian on July 3rd to celebrate his birthday at the Justice Department and pretty much make a statement to the bureaucrats inside saying there are American citizens who believe in our Constitution and see that what you are doing or intend to do with Assange's case is illegal and we will not be quiet. We will make noise. And I think if he were actually here in a prison in the United States, that movement would have only grown and it would have ultimately pressured mainstream media

organizations to make statements about press freedom here, because it's something that even if they don't want to endorse Assange, even if they resent him, they ultimately would, if he were here and the trial actually became real, they would be forced to confront this reality and oppose it. And we would have to have a discussion about what our founders actually intended. And there's this one quote that I want to share from Thomas Jefferson, actually, that I also shared with John Shipton, Julian's father, when I met him here in DC. It was something along the lines of,

it was in a letter that Jefferson wrote where he said that the US government will become wolves preying on the people unless the affairs of the government are public and transmitted through the papers and widely read. So Assange embodies that quote. I can send you the exact quote. I'll give you a better one from Jefferson. If I had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to choose the latter. That is the American spirit that I believe in and that we've gotten

away from that would be revived if Julian actually came here for trial. And so I think there are certain people in power who feared that. I'm as ecstatic as you and our colleagues are that he's free, but I'm angry that the Fed still got their pound of the flesh. I was on with Piers Morgan the other day. There was a crazy, wacky member of parliament there on the show who was just delighted that he pleaded guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. Now, in my career as a judge, I have taken more than a thousand guilty pleas, and I know many, many, many of these are pleading guilty, not because they are in fact and in law guilty, but just to end the prospect of

prosecution. The government always over-indicts, over-charges, meaning charges for more than it can actually prove, charges for more than the evidence warrants, so that it can intimidate the defendant into pleading guilty for something so the government doesn't have to go through the expense of the trial. Here's Jennifer Robinson, one of Julian's British lawyers on the guilty plea. In order to win his freedom, Julian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage for publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes, human rights abuse, human rights abuse and U.S. wrongdoing around the world. This is journalism. This is the criminalization of journalism.

That's why this is so terrifying. To my conservative Republican friends, I remind them, the Barack Obama administration and DOJ decided that Julian Assange was protected by the Pentagon Papers decision, and they would only prosecute Bradley Manning and not Julian Assange and then Trump exploded and demoted at Manning and at then former President Obama. Then the Trump administration came in and they decided to prosecute Assange. I thought I had talked President Trump

into pardoning Assange. He was obviously talked out of it by Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr. So it's a dangerous lesson. These are dangerous times for personal freedom, even though for our friend and colleague Julian, it's a very, very happy moment and we should rejoice with him and with his family. But will lessons be learned from this, dear Anya? Will the government learn the lesson? Will the people learn the lesson

that the government can't be trusted, that it lies, cheats, steals, and kills? And without the Julian Assanges or Anya Parenpoz or Max Blumenthals or Aaron Maté and the people that do what you do, we won't know about it. I don't have faith that our government will learn any lessons or practice differently. I think it is up to the people to learn those lessons. And I do believe we have. And then force our government to honor the constitution because that's, that's the issue here is that we actually have these rights.

We have a document that is pretty good and we have gotten away from it. We we've, whether it's the Patriot act or through other laws of subversion and basically this growing national security state, we've lost our constitutional rights. And I do think that even though Assange was not brought here, the fact that they prosecuted and persecuted him for so long and tortured him through by proxy through the British system does send a message to Americans that there are no

limits there, or maybe other than bringing him here because they might be scared of some sort of actual movement building here in response, that there are no limits. The government will go to silence someone. And that's why I'm interested to see what Julian does next, because something tells me he will not be silent and he will not just disappear from public life. I believe that that he will have things to say about everything that is happening in our world right now. And that your show, as I've said many times, the growing popularity of your show and independent media that, that is having a conversation about the crimes of our government and the real constitution that we must return to does give me hope. It does make me feel as though people have learned the lessons. And also they learned the lessons of WikiLeaks, period.

They learned how the dark system that operates around the world in our name actually functions. And so that gives me hope. And of course, at a time when there's been so much darkness in the world in these wars that we discuss on your show and the endless images coming out of Gaza and sadness and horrible stories that we hear in Ukraine and Russia, this moment of freedom for Assange is a reminder that there is hope. And it tells me, I believe that truth and light and humanity will always win. My column that comes out tonight encourages him to do two things after he rests and breathes fresh air and eats decent food and embraces his family. The first is to renounce the guilty plea. And the second is to get to work and start revealing more information about what the government is doing. Now, that might be

dangerous. He's not in Ireland, where there is no extradition treaty with Great Britain or with the United States. He's in Australia, one of those English-speaking countries under the thumb of the United States, even though the Australian Prime Minister Albanese personally lobbied President Biden for this to happen. They could turn on him on a dime if he's not in a country where his rights would be respected. He's going to have to make that choice. No way could a human being go through again what he just went through. But knowing him as I do and as you do, now you may know him better. I only interviewed him a few times remotely.

He was in London. I was in New York. He is not going to be silent. No, I mean, just I actually don't know him personally, but I've followed his, I wouldn't be a journalist, I can say that if it weren't for WikiLeaks. He, Julian Assange and his project revealed to me the power of journalism

and the power of the pen because, and the power of truth, really. I remember when the Cable, and the power of truth, really. I remember when the cable gate, the State Department documents, I originally wanted to be a diplomat, actually, that's what I wanted to do, and became very, very turned off by how our State Department works by reading those cables, and also arriving at GW in Washington, D.C. and just being around the people participating in the school to state department pipeline. But people may remember the first wave of what's now regarded as the Arab Spring actually began in Tunisia when a man self-immolated in the streets in protest of the

longtime dictator there, Ben Ali. And that was just after WikiLeaks cables had revealed the deep corruption that existed within the Tunisian regime. And even mainstream media outlets, The Guardian, I think, for example, branded that revolution in Tunisia, the WikiLeaks, the world's first WikiLeaks revolution. And that showed me that a little bit of truth or in many cases, what WikiLeaks did is confirm what people already believe. You know, the tinfoil hat conspiracists, when they talk about the security state or what we thought were conspiracy theories, it all came to be true thanks to WikiLeaks. Now we can point to the documents and that kind of truth is contagious, just like the courage that Julian

had and has is contagious. And he's an example to all of us. In 2019, I believe, or maybe it was, yeah, 2019, I interviewed the former president of Honduras who was removed in a coup, a US-backed coup basically managed by Hillary Clinton in 2009. Actually, this Friday is the 15-year anniversary of that coup. And I asked that former president, José Manuel Zelaya, who'd been deposed, about the power of WikiLeaks because in Honduras, WikiLeaks cables exposed the role that Hillary played in that operation. And he told me at that time that he believed Julian Assange was a prophet of some sorts, that people like that are always repressed and persecuted in the moment that they're around, but that they become a symbol of whatever it is that they are fighting for.

In Julian's case, it is truth and that he's going to last as a symbol of that for generations to come. And the truth, the seeds that he planted are sprouting. I think, as I said, they will continue to sprout. I mean, there are so many documents on WikiLeaks that incriminate the highest echelons of power in the United States that I hope one day, now that Julian is free, instead of him being behind bars, we actually see the criminals that are running this operation around the world, the people that are causing these wars, the people that are repressing the will of human beings all across the planet, that those people actually experience justice. Beautifully, beautifully said, my dear friend. I was going to get into the latest from the Pentagon and what happened in Sevastopol and the latest from Israel and Gaza.

I'll save it for Mr. Blumenthal tomorrow. Thank you, Anya. Thank you for, I have had a number of conversations on air and off about Julian. This was truly the most articulate and most enlightening not from my end from your end thank you my dear friend you're very kind i will see you again soon indeed of course all the best uh we have a fascinating day for you tomorrow so long i have to look down on this page uh forgive me from looking down at least all times U.S. Eastern at eight o'clock. Ambassador Craig Murray currently running on George Galloway party's ticket for parliament at nine o'clock. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow on the latest in Russia at one thirty in the afternoon.

A new guest, Roger Robert Gage, a world-renowned architect, who will speak about 9-11 and how did Building 7 come down from the perspective of an architect. At two o'clock, Phil Giraldi, who's home from vacation. A lot of you have been asking for Phil. At 3.15, Colonel Douglas McGregor. At four o'clock, the inimitable Max Blumenthal. And at five o'clock, the great Professor John Mearsheimer. I'm going to get some sleep. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!