Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/22/24 Kevin Gosztola on the Good Julian Assange News

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Kevin Gosztola of The Dissenter returns to the show to discuss the latest ruling in Julian Assange’s legal battle. The UK’s High Court granted Assange a full appeal. Gosztola and Scott dissect what that means and discuss where things could go from here. Discussed on the show: “US Effort To Extradite Assange Hits Roadblock As British High Court Grants Appeal” (The Dissenter) Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of Shadowproof. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “Unauthorized Disclosure.” He is the author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange. Follow him on Twitter @kgosztola. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show hey guys on the line i've got the great journalist kevin gastola from the dissenter dot org and of course he's the author of this great book guilty of journalism and it's kind of weird but i'm actually actually about to interview him about this article that Mohammed al-Mazi wrote but whatever it's the news and we actually have some good news from the UK in the case of Julian Assange and his terrible tour through the British appeal system here so welcome to the show how are you doing Kevin yeah it's good to join you happy to have you here so uh well what happened yeah so uh just so it's not as weird. I hired Muhammad Almazi to write for the dissenter because suddenly the

High Court of Justice has taken this position that no international reporters should have video link access to Julian Assange's proceedings, even though we did before. And they're saying that we can't have access because we're not in England or Wales. So if we're not in England, or Wales, basically, they feel they cannot enforce the court rules, which means they can't hold us in contempt if we take a screenshot or share video from the court proceeding, and then they can't jail us. And so basically, because I can't be jailed for violating court rules from my, I guess, home newsroom in Chicago, I am not allowed to have access to these proceedings anymore. So I hired Muhammad al-Mazi to be my eyes and ears for the dissenter,

and he did a fantastic report. And basically yesterday on May, sorry, on May 20th, on Monday, May 20th, we have this extraordinary development where Assange got basically the first positive court decision in a very long time, where the high court ruled in his favor and granted an appeal hearing on the issue of the First Amendment in the United States. And that'll be happening, I presume, in the next couple of months. And the issue is basically that they are concerned that Julian Assange's right to freedom of expression will be violated because of the way the First Amendment functions in the United States and how it excludes foreign national. And because there isn't enough freedom of expression for people like Julian Assange, they've come to the conclusion that it is arguable that he would be prejudiced based on his nationality as an Australian and would have a harder time challenging the accusations against him in a U.S. courtroom.

So, in other words, they want to have it both ways and say that the Espionage Act, which they never have applied to, or at least they haven't gone too far in applying it, I guess they tried to do this to Daniel Ellsberg back when. But, no, because he was just the leaker. They didn't really get away with doing this to the New York Times then. But so they're taking this unprecedented interpretation and application. of the espionage act against this guy and claiming that american law applies to him but they want to have it both ways and say but the first amendment which is also american law does not apply to him and so but the court you're saying in britain the appeals court seemed to not be buying that argument or at least weren't convinced enough and have allowed assange the next step in his

process based on what a kind of laughable sort of a claim that is on the part of the United States and its representatives there. Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. So the high court back in March issued a decision where they said that they had clear concerns that Julian Assange might not have a fair shot at arguing that if the First Amendment applied to him, then this prosecution would never have been brought. And so they believed this was in their ruling, that the concerns arise under these grounds may be capable of being addressed by assurances. That would be like the applicant is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, the applicant is Julian Assange, and that he would be prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality,

that he has afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen. And so they offered the United States the opportunity to put forward in a diplomatic note from the State Department, which is what they did, an assurance on the First Amendment, but it's basically a non-assurance assurance in the sense that they didn't, the executive branch doesn't have the authority to assure that the First Amendment will be applied to Julian Assange or that he will have First Amendment protections. That's actually for a court to determine. On the other hand, you might recall from a prior conversation or interview that we did that there was an assurance that was offered or there was an issue of

Julian Assange's potential risk of exposure to the death penalty. And what Assange's legal team did in that case with that assurance is to accept it and say that this is something that is within the power of the executive branch. They can say that they are not going to bring or pursue a death penalty sentence against Julian Assange or add any more charges that carry the death penalty. And so since these are supposed to be binding promises that the U.S. government makes in a courtroom when seeking extradition in the U.K. court, then they accepted it. But they could not accept the First Amendment one because all it says is he will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial, which includes any sentencing hearing, the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, a decision. decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S.

courts. So as I said, the U.S. government has no power whatsoever to actually satisfy what the High Court of Justice is asking. So they're in this incredible dilemma that they created on their own by virtue of the fact that they allowed their lead prosecutor Gordon Cromberg to say that the U.S. prosecutors could go into a trial or go through pretrial hearings arguing that Julian Assange basically had no freedom of expression rights under the U.S. Constitution. And that sent off an alarm bell in the heads of high court justices. And I'm not really sure how the U.S. government will untangle this. The two judges there, one is Dame Victoria Sharkey. I believe, and I don't have the other one handy, but I do know from observers that were there,

in particular, Craig Murray, who's done some fantastic work chronicling these proceedings on his blog, that he was very intrigued or impressed by the fact that at one moment, there was an exchange where the prosecutor tried to stop the Assange lawyers from going on so much about the issues of the First Amendment that they were speaking about. And the high court justice, it was Victoria Sharp, this judge said, well, the issues here are, and what's at stake, are so important that we are going to listen to whatever these Assange lawyers have to say. And that was the first time in Craig Murray's opinion and I would agree with him that he thought the British High Court was finally taking what is, what this case

entails seriously. You know, it kind of reminds me, you think this is a fair analogy to what was going on at Guantanamo Bay, where the fact that this is all very unprecedented and they're making it up as they go along, ends up leading to it not really working. And so here they're making these claims, as you described, that are contradictory claims about their authority and their promises and what kind of rights will be predicted and so forth and painted themselves into this corner because essentially it's ad hoc. And this was the best they could do on their first try. Yeah, it's my understanding, although I don't have as much expertise on this as I do. the Assange case, but it's my understanding that what they're running into now is somewhat

a result of how they sought, and I think they were actually rather successful in saying that Guantanamo Bay prisoners don't have First Amendment rights. And so they're, you know, they painted themselves into a corner. The novelty of this prosecution is such that they are having a difficulty with issues that they probably didn't think they were going to have to resolve until they were in a U.S. courtroom. And then they were probably hopeful that they could get before, and it would be in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is basically a national security court for what it's worth. It's been referred to as the espionage court. So they were probably hoping they could get a deferential judge who they could talk their ears off about

the sanctity of classified information and who had this, you know, was one of the believers in their religion of U.S. national security and they could persuade to see that this is a case that should be brought and pursued against Julian Assange, even though it puts First Amendment at risk, even though it violates press freedom. It's unprecedented. They've only threatened journalists before. And just to be clear here, people like Seymour Hirsch and James Bamford, who have done some exceptional work as journalists were threatened back in the late 70s, 80s, I believe,

with prosecutions. There's a organization called Beacon Press that tried to share the Pentagon Paper. are published them as a book, and they were threatened. But they've never gone through with pursuing an espionage act prosecution against a publisher or a journalist. And so now, I think they were thinking in a U.S. courtroom, they would not have to worry about defending themselves. But now they're in a U.K. courtroom, and they have to defend what they're going to do in a violation or in undermining the First Amendment. And I think it's going to be difficult because these high court justices, these judges, they are looking at something that I think is a bit

more substantive in the sense that there isn't any citizenship requirement. In Supreme Court case law, they do, they have ruled and have concluded that it matters if you have ties to the United States and if you have citizenship in the U.S., that is when you can claim First Amendment protections. But the Article 10, freedom of expression, that they are using as the authority for whether his rights are violated or not, that does not have any citizenship requirement in the United Kingdom. Yeah, and I don't know what all the limits are. I'm not a lawyer, but I know that basically the theory is that if they put their hands on you, the national government of the United States has you, then you are a U.S. person and the Bill

of Rights applies. And maybe the Supreme Court carves out, you know, certain exceptions for them and what have you. But ultimately, the first and especially the Fifth and Sixth Amendments should be there to protect people from being mercilessly persecuted, you know, which is supposed to be against the law in this country. And to go along with what you're saying, James Goodall, who was a lot, who was the General Counsel for the New York Times in arguing that they had the right to publish the Pentagon Papers when Richard Nixon was trying to stop them, has said it is absurd that these prosecutors, and they're still going along with this, would say that you have to

follow and obey. You said a version of this earlier, that you have to follow and obey the espionage act you can't violate it but oh but you don't have constitutional rights you don't have the protections that come with being prosecuted under this law and and that's absurd it sure should be hang on just one second for me here you guys i'm so proud to announce the publication of the libertarian institute's 14th book it's israel winner of the 2003 iraq oil war undue influence Deceptions, and the Neocon Energy Agenda by Gary Vogler, former senior oil consultant and deputy senior oil advisor for U.S. forces during Iraq War II. Remember how I wrote in enough already about how Ahmed Chalabi sold the neoconservatives

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Oh, so I'll just tell you that in working with Muhammad on this article, at one point, he said something about prejudicing citizenship and nationality. And I asked him, well, what's the difference? I figured it could be one or the other. Or why does it say an Australian citizen and a foreign national? and why does it make a difference? In my head, I don't see a difference. I'm not really sure why the...

So the U.S. government took this approach. They had their prosecutors in the courtroom in the UK tried to make a distinction, but I don't think the high court bought it. They didn't really care that they were trying to draw this kind of distinction. And... Well, and where is the distinction?

even land i mean the guy's a citizen and a national of australia and nowhere else right that's not in dispute is it right and i'm there they're certainly not claiming that he somehow has uh he doesn't have any he's not a u k citizen i mean he he spent so much time in the u k but he was living in the ecuador embassy under asylum that was granted by the ecuador government he he was living under house arrest, but he never did anything to take up some kind of like permanent citizenship in the UK. So yeah, there's no question. He doesn't have dual citizenship. It's not like he's got UK and Australian citizenship. So to be clear, like to me, in my mind, it seems like a distinction without a difference that didn't get them

anywhere to sit there and argue about nationality versus citizenship. Is that what they were arguing, though? Was that he was somehow a national of the UK now? No, no. I'm just, I'm just trying to. I don't understand. I don't understand who's on what side of this argument as far as the lawyers here. I'm not a lawyer, but it just seems like a desperate tactic to try and confuse the high

court judges into not taking the First Amendment issue or the issues of freedom of expression seriously. And it didn't wash. It didn't help them stop the court from granting an appeal hearing. So now they have to figure out how to address the questions that are being raised by the high court head on or this is going to block their extradition. well and yeah Mohammed quotes in the piece here that the defense said well this is novel and unsupported by any expert evidence

and is being made for the first time at this stage right now in other words they really are just making this up as it as they're going along and I guess this is why the court ain't buying it yeah and they've done this at every stage the entire indictment

Well, there's actually multiple indictments that were served against Julian Assange from 2019 to 2020, but each version of the indictment is trying to advance both a set of facts and interpretations of the law that are novel and they're made up and probably shouldn't be allowed to work if you claim to if you want to live in a free society it probably shouldn't be the case that that's how everything is organized by the judiciary yeah now so in trying to avoid prosecution in the united states he's waging all these appeals but that means he's essentially serving time anyway in what you would call jail but no actually in prison and high security solitary confinement supermax style prison there in belmarsh in england which is just an atrocity it's so unfair but uh you're i'm sorry mohammed's piece here at your site the dissenter dot org it uh ends with a note about asanj's health that really goes to show what a persecution of this guy this is because he is

getting nothing like the best health care in jail there and apparently is not doing that well can you give us some kind of update about what you know on that he did Julian did not attend the court proceeding and this was the second proceeding in a row that he did not attend due to his health now it's it's good I I know that it's a good thing that he was given an opportunity to go out into the yard and be in the sunlight I know that the Belmar's prison has been depriving him of access to son. It's something that has impacted his bones and it is part of the deterioration of his body. And so he is in this predicament where he's not convicted of any crime, but he will not be granted bail. No judge is willing to grant him,

bail because what they've decided, we've talked a little bit about this before, but it's an important point when people ask, why don't they just set him free? And if he wins his appeal, why can't he be set free? The U.S. and the UK governments have convinced the courts in the UK that going to a diplomatic embassy and asking for asylum basically amounts to, to being a fugitive from justice that like you're trying to flee from going to a court so you're not seeking asylum because there's going to be an attack on your human rights or your civil liberties or however you want to frame it you are doing it to escape accountability and so they do not want julian assange out of belmarsh because they are afraid that any of these governments that

have offered asylum to him that he might try to go to those embassies when in 2021 in January when he was denied after after he won his extradition argument that the extradition was blocked by Vanessa Beretser at the district court level in 2021 she kept him in jail because she was persuaded by one of the prosecutors that he would try to go to Mexico's embassy since Obrador, President Obrador in Mexico, is willing to offer Julian Assange asylum. And so this is why he's in jail. And being in jail, but not convicted of any crimes, actually means that he has fewer privileges and is given less access to his family than people who are already convicted of, let's say, terrorism offenses or violent offenses, however you want to view it. And

And that's impacted him tremendously. And by the way, of those countries, are any of them America's so-called adversary states, Russia, China, Iran, something like that? Or we're all just talking about small Latin American states run by leftists, or at least temporarily, who might provide him some kind of asylum. Yeah, I have to go check. there might be at this point there might be a European country that is willing to grant him asylum but they know the reality they understand that he can't come claim that asylum because he can't escape the clutches of the U.S. government so to some degree I don't accusing Mexico of this but let's say if France or Germany or or even Italy were to offer it they don't really have

to worry about following through on that promise and then confronting the U.S. United States because he's not going to be able to enter their embassy and we would be able to see if they were really going to bat for the guy and insisting that America relent on this one which they're not doing so um man all right but it is an important fact to still put out there to everyone listening that australia stands behind him um after he won this appeal hearing He has the government support and he has all the opposition, people who are against the Australian government. So the political parties across the political spectrum in Australia would like to see their citizen freed and returned home and their close ally. Now, I know that there are Assange campaigners in Australia that don't feel that Albanesey, the prime minister, is doing enough to pressure the United States,

that there's more that could be done, especially since the U.S. relies on them to, or sorry, the Australia government, they offer the U.S. a base for operations to challenge and counter China's domination in the Asia-Pacific region. And without that, without that permission and the invitation to be their present, they would not be able to. challenge their, I guess you call that hegemony in the region. So there's hope or sorry, there's people who have wanted Australia to do more to challenge Joe Biden and the U.S. government. You know, that being said, it's a game changer in Stella's view and the Assange Lingle team's view and Stella Assange's view and their view that they are actually

standing up for one of their own citizens against the U.S. government. And when did they finally get as serious as they are now that Stella became impressed, that kind of thing? Yeah, this was, I'd say within the last year. Actually, within the last four or five months, I mean, truly, the parliament of Australia passed a resolution that condemned the United States for bringing this prosecution against Julian Assange and demanded that they release him, that they asked a resolution that they. end it. I think that the Australia government could probably be more pointed in their request to end the case, but they're giving the Biden Justice Department a way out. And they're not saying drop the charges against Julian Assange. They're saying, offer him some kind of a charge and have him plead guilty. Then we would probably accept that he did time served. He's been in Belmarcial.

for five years. It's actually longer than several individuals have spent in prison who were convicted of violating the Espionage Act. And then allow him to return. The UK could deport him to Australia, allow him and his family to come to Australia and live there and then end this legal saga. And so there are Osama supporters that take issue with those. way that they're not just saying, drop the charges, but by saying just end the case, uh, find a charge. But this becomes a problem for Julian Assange, because he's not willing to plead guilty to any offenses that will set more of a precedent that would be dangerous to global journalism

or, uh, I guess, uh, freedom of the press as, as, as, as we refer to it. And so he doesn't want to plead guilty to anything that. falls underneath the espionage act he isn't really i don't know if he wants to plead to anything mishandling classified information because uh that could be bad for journalists and then uh he could plead to the computer crime charge but i don't know if he likes how that is constructed either So it's really unclear to me that the U.S. can offer him a charge that he would be willing to plead guilty because he has these principles, which I understand, and he's fought this long that he just doesn't want to give up. I think he's very committed to trying to beat the United States. And now we have this opening, this ruling from the high court, is the first time in, well, three little more.

a little more than three years that Julian Assange has a shot to defeat the U.S. extradition request. Yeah. Well, and let's leave it there at the good news. And we'll relish that and hope that it lasts and that things get better from here. Thank you very much for your time, Kevin. Appreciate it. That's Kevin Gostola. His website is Thedicenter.org. And his book is called Guilty of Journalism, the political case against Julian Assange. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.