Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/28/24 Kevin Gosztola on the Plea Deal that Freed Julian Assange

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

Kevin Gosztola returns to the show. But this time, it isn’t to provide yet another update on Julian Assange’s long struggle for freedom but to react to, explain and celebrate the plea deal that got him there. Gosztola and Scott review the technicalities of the deal, highlight the significance of the Manning leak it dealt with and reflect on the movement that brought Julian Assange home.  Discussed on the show: “Assange plea came after warning that U.S. would lose extradition fight” (Washington Post) 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 got kevin gastola from the dissenter dot org and of course he wrote the book guilty of journalism about julian asange and is america's foremost chronicler of the

trials and tribulations of Julian Assange. And I guess you're celebrating this week, huh, Kevin? Welcome back. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I mean, Julian Assange is free, so I feel pretty good. That's good. So I had a chance to talk with his brother, Gabriel Shepton, yesterday, and said he's having a good time hanging out on the beach with his wife and his sons. And Gabriel's in France and hasn't had a chance to actually put his hands on the guy yet. But I guess he's going to be on his way home to Australia here pretty soon. but so i don't know how long before i guess you'll know before me uh when he's going to be doing interviews but um apparently he's doing all right all things considered so that's the good news

yeah it was all smiles um and they they got to go to parliament and it was a pretty much a homecoming and i think there was like a parade maybe with people who were supporters welcoming them home the political class in Australia see Julian Assange's. So they're celebrating because they were able to get him out of the clutches of the United States. Yeah. And that's cool. I hadn't seen that that he had gone to parliament and all that. They're treating him like a hero.

Well, he didn't go to parliament. But his attorney, Jen Robinson, and then Stella Assange were both there. and just hanging out with parliamentarians that had helped Julian Assange get free. I see. That's great. Okay. So, well, I mean, I guess I got your reaction already. Let's get into the nitty gritty here about why in the world would the evil empire let this guy go? Their case collapsed. Your listeners should, if they can, whatever they need to do to get behind the Washington Post paywall read this article. So I did my own deep dive into the plea deal. And I'm always going to boost my work first over some establishment news media. But that was from the Assange legal team's perspective. This is from inside the Justice Department. And the case

collapsed. They were warned by a Justice Department attorney in the United Kingdom that they needed to come to a plea deal. There was a warning on April 4th that basically they needed to end this. Otherwise, they were going to lose in the appeals court. Okay. Now, Kevin, refresh my memory because it was just a couple of weeks ago, or I don't know how many we talk about this all the time, but very recently, you were telling me that he's got one appeal left at the very highest level and it's a pretty thin appeal and then after that boy it's all downhill i mean in the worst way um in the european court of human rights which is basically toothless and isn't going to do anything and so can you remind me what it was exactly that was still at issue and that the just

department officials in england were so sure was actually going to to kill the deal because the bad guys had been successful in court through many levels of appeals in a row here, right? Yeah. So, and this is really hard to follow because there's wins and there's losses for Julian Assange and it's hard to tell exactly what legal issues actually were going to do anything meaningful to free Assange or if it was going to stop the extradition. But Craig Murray, who I know you're familiar with as a British ambassador, was pretty upbeat after a hearing was granted on the question of the First Amendment and how it would apply to Julian Assange.

Because the answer is it doesn't. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that foreign nationals or non-U.S. citizens like Julian Assange with no ties to the United States do not have the free speech. rights that you and me have under the U.S. Constitution. And so the High Court of Justice was looking at the European Convention on Human Rights, which does not have any limitations when it comes to granting people their broad rights of freedom of expression. It does not depend on your citizenship. And so they were saying that if Julian Assange is extradited to the United States, he would be prejudiced, or it was at least arguable and they needed to consider the issue, that he would be prejudiced due to his nationality if extradited. This created a panic

because they didn't want some kind of a precedent where this could get in the way of future extradition requests outside of Julian Assange, but also there was no assurance they could give that would satisfy this British appeals court. They can't grant Julian Assange First Amendment rights because he's not supposed to have them under our law. Well, according to their theory of it, that they're trying to protect from being reviewed, right? Because under our law, if he's a U.S. person because they got their hands on him,

then he's a U.S. person with the First Amendment 2 or not. That's what's at issue that they were afraid to have tested, right? That's not the approach that they're taking. So my understanding is that, let's just for the sake of our, conversation pretend I am the journalist who has been charged with violating the Espionage Act. But I'm a U.S. citizen. So I can invoke the U.S. Constitution to try and protect me. And I can go at this injustice with, I think, much more ability to challenge and fight than a whistleblower because I didn't sign a security clearance. I didn't agree

not to disclose classified information when I got a job. I am performing a function and doing an act that all people from, you know, New York Times, editors and reporters all the way down to someone with a substack or, I don't know, let's say, Seymour Hirsch gets some documents and decides to publish today. Like, we have some protection, I think, whereas Julian Assange does not, because he doesn't have a U.S. citizenship. And then obviously beyond that, there is this fundamental problem in my mind that they have created this idea that he is not a journalist, despite having memberships to journalist groups,

journalists associations in Australia and in London. And I recognize that the First Amendment, it's just basically that it protects people who engage in journalism. it's just freedom of the press any citizen can engage in journalism but one of the things that they did to make them believe they could get away with prosecuting julian asange under the espionage act and successfully bring him to the u.s and put him on trial is by creating this uh characterization that he's more of like a hacker and uh somebody who had strayed from they always used this phrase responsible journalism to say that he had not engaged in practicing news gathering the way that most

people do, which was so, you know, it didn't actually make the issues go away that they had with the First Amendment. Of course, yeah, what's irresponsible journalism, journalism that the government doesn't like? That's never been the test. That's not the test at all. Although, you know, it's been a few years, Kevin, I'd have to go back, but I think probably Marjorie Cohn, she's the sharpest lady I've ever talked to about things before. I think we should probably check with her, but I'm not so sure that citizenship is the test here for the First Amendment at all, because what if you're just a green card holder or a visa holder or even an illegal immigrant? But then you go to a protest. I can lock you up for going to a protest or something. I don't think that that's right.

I think the First Amendment applies if the national governments, if the Justice Department is claiming that their power applies to you, then it does. Now, not in the case of whether they're going to deport you or not, but like they can't say that, well, you're a illegal immigrant. So when it comes to this murder charge, we're going to give you a different kind of trial than we give regular people without the same protections of the Bill of Rights or something like that, right? So that what makes you a U.S. person, what makes Asanja a U.S. person is the fact that they're the ones prosecuting him. So if they had extradited him to America successfully, then it should be a real legal fight over whether the First Amendment applies or not. And it's the government's claim that it doesn't. But I'm not so sure that that's clear. And I think that's one of the things that they were afraid of being tested probably too.

But you know what? Now that I'm spouting off and I didn't spend a day in law school, maybe I should say, see if I can get Marjorie Cohen back on the show. It's Cohen, I'm sorry, back on the show to talk about this because she's so sharp on this stuff. Definitely talk to her, but I got this thing about the Supreme Court decision. And, you know, it's her viewpoint that the U.S. government was put in this position by the appeals court where they couldn't give an assurance that the court wanted. I mean, they wanted them to just outright say Julian Assange would have the ability to say, you know, he had first.

Amendment protection and to make that argument in defending himself against espionage act charges and they couldn't oh no i agree with you but that's a separate issue kind of right because that's them not wanting to admit it but that's not the question of whether ultimately it would or should apply when it went up against a court test here you know of course that's what but i'll just say like you're you're you're in to me your example about the immigrants that go to the protests who are then rounded up and put through, I don't know, deportation proceedings or whatever, and they say, well, I was doing something that I had a right to do. They have ties, and green card holders also have ties to the United States.

I mean, the thing is that, like, Julian Assange maybe came to the U.S. one time while he was working for WikiLeaks and putting out all of these documents. He hasn't ever spent any time here. He was in Iceland at the time. of the Manning League, I guess. So there's another, there's another example that I looked to and I tried to see if it gave me any further insights on, you know, whether Julian Assange was being treated properly or improperly or how the U.S. government was handling this case and it involved Christopher Steele, who, of course,

is the Steele dossier infamous. And there was this whole thing with him about whether he had First Amendment rights. And they actually determined that he did, even though he's not a U.S. citizen, because he spent some time in the United States. So, I mean, that's a big part of why. And what was that case about? Well, I think it had to do with some kind of legal challenge to him related to that, you know, the dossier that made up all kinds of lies about Russia. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead.

No, I only have a vague understanding of it. But I raise it because I had gone in search of other cases in which people were trying to claim that they had First Amendment rights when they were foreign nationals. And Christopher Steele's case popped up. And they ended up saying that he does have First Amendment rights just because he had spent some time living in the U.S. So if Julian Assange had even spent like a few months living in the U.S. for any time, he might have been able to claim that. and win First Amendment protection. Yeah. You know, it's such a tragedy.

This thing has been going on for so long. They were pre-trial punishing this guy for so long that I don't remember anymore. But I want to talk to the lawyers that I used to talk to about this stuff. In fact, I used to talk with his lawyer, Ben Winsner from ACOU, about this stuff, too, man. But it's been so many years, I can't remember anymore. But I would like to nail this down because I do think at least some of the time, part of the time, depending on what's the court precedent or what have you, that the U.S. person status comes from the U.S. DOJ being the ones putting their hands on you,

even if it's for a crime that was committed overseas. And some of that is even like pretty novel in their interpretation, right, where Manning was in Iraq and Assange was in Iceland, and they broke into a computer that was in Iraq, or not they did. Sorry, Manning did. and so this broke American law under what theory exactly, right, or how does American law even apply in the first place? I think that was potentially a problem that they were going to have to face

when it came to pretrial hearings here. And how is it that you can apply this law for this behavior that took place all overseas, but at the same time denying all Bill of Rights protections? You know, that doesn't seem fair. yeah well so let me also just add here uh just kind of move the conversation that julian asange led guilty to journalism in courts you know i you introduced my book i i had no idea that he was going to actually say when he was asked by the judge and by the way i haven't spoken about this yet But one of the more incredible parts of Julian Assange's becoming free is that he insists as part of his plea deal.

He is not going to come to the continental United States no matter what. And what they come up with is that they can go to a U.S. territory that the U.S. military took control of after World War II, after beating Japan. They say you can go to Saipan, the territorial court. of the North Mariana Islands, and you can, and they, he takes a charter flight, on board that charter flight is the most senior diplomat, Stephen Smith from Australia, who is helping him, basically escorting him. He's been, granted bail. As a human shield, is that right?

I don't know. I mean, I guess, I guess, I guess he's on the plane so that there isn't any funny business from the CIA, maybe. Yeah. I mean, if you want to get into that. Do me a favor, Mr. Ambassador. Please ride shotgun with me and let them know that you are riding shotgun before we get out of here. I'm sorry.

So the most senior diplomat goes with them and they land in this Pacific Ocean U.S. colony. I mean, it's, there's a lot of military operations that have taken place from here. Testing of weaponry that has occurred on this island. I was looking a bit into it. And so they go in here and this, it only has one judge to the court. Her name's Ramona Manglona and asks him, you know, to say what crime he committed. It's part of the plea hearing that any time you plead guilty to a crime, you have to state what it is you did so the judge can be convinced that you are taking responsibility and you understand what you're pleading guilty to doing. He said, I'm going to read as well.

words verbatim. Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that as written it's a violation of the Espionage Act statute. Yep. Which is so important, right, because it means he didn't plead guilty to any of that crap and they didn't try to make him. The only thing he pleaded guilty to was just as he said the thing that he actually did that of course is not criminal it's just they've made an offense out of it but is perfectly legit and it's behavior that he can be perfectly proud of yeah right and i watched uh i watched judge andrew napolitano say very clearly and i i actually believe

this this is how i have approached the transactional nature of this plea deal is that he was coerced into this you know and it is like gone to his head And like so many people in the U.S. plead guilty to crimes they never committed just so they can be free. Julian Assange said, I committed conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act just so he can be free. But in this deal, he got some really good stuff from the U.S. government because they were panicking. They believed that their case had collapsed. And so what he got was that in this deal, it says he can't be prosecuted for anything he did before these plea deal negotiations. I don't know if you knew that, but he basically now has protection.

He can't be in Australia and then suddenly find that the Justice Department says, we're going to get you for the CIA hacking materials. Right, the Vault 7 or any of that. Yeah. Right. He can't suddenly wake up and find that some Democrats around Biden are like, well, we didn't get what we wanted. Let's go ahead and get him for the DNC and the Clinton campaign emails. And let's do that because we think he was working for Russia. no it can't happen he's protected so nothing before that is anything he can be criminally charged for he didn't agree to a gag order so he can talk about anything related to the case and also he you know um he had to pay no fines there's no restitution at all that he owes sometimes people

um owe uh the victims of the crime money but here's another crucial part. They admitted in court the government did. No matter, I mean, I've followed this for over 10 years, 10 to 15 years I've covered this, right? Every time they've talked about Assange and WikiLeaks, they always use either in some form of innuendo or they outright say it, the idea that WikiLeaks has blood on their hands. Right. The government told the court there were no presumptive victims of Julian Assange's actions. They could not produce a single individual who would claim they deserved restitution for the damage that was done. And so I take that to be the government for the first time truly being upfront that nobody was hurt and

nobody was injured by WikiLeaks at all. Well, actually, if I remember right, and I probably learned this from you at the time, maybe you would characterize this a different way or something, but did the government not admit that at Manning's court martial? Well, Not exactly. So they never did produce a person during that proceeding, but I've talked to you before about how there was a military general that took the stand. And while he was on the stand, the military prosecutor, his name was Ashton Fine, tried to get the general to say that the Taliban had executed a innocent person who had been named in the WikiLeaks document. in the war logs because, and that individual, I guess, was working with the military. The only problem is that was Taliban propaganda. And they had just said that because they're an extremist group and they knew the value of claiming that this document had helped them identify someone working for the United States. And the judge caught them in the lie. The Manning's defense

called it out the judge caught them in a lie and they were admonished she was very angry with the prosecutors were trying to push a lie in her courtroom and from that point forward it was pretty clear and she's told uh you know everyone there she said i will not from this point forward you will not convince me that any one was killed in afghanistan as a result of these documents and then the proceedings continued i see so in other words In the Manning hearing, the government witness was essentially forced to admit, whereas in this case, you have the actual government prosecutors themselves stipulating the truth that there was no harm done here. The only other, and then there's also Robert Gates, of course, had admitted that no one was hurt. He said this was all significantly overwrought all the criticism about that.

And then if I heard Shepton Wright, when I talked with Gabriel Shepton yesterday, he said that the judge also then, in some form, repeated back the government's stipulation there and confirmed it. So, in other words, it wasn't just the government, but it was the judge too. So now we have Gates, the admission of the government witness, who is, you said what, a general? in the man-in hearing? I believe his name was Robert Carr, yeah. Robert Carr, under oath, under cross-examination, I guess, is forcing to concede. Then, yeah, the government stipulating

and the federal judge confirming. So that's four good ones there. No one was harmed by the Manning League. It's nothing like Aldrich Ames getting American spies in the Soviet Union killed and stuff like that, or Jonathan Pollard either, anything like that where it's, you know, harm done. That's why all this stuff was only secret level.

and confidential level stuff. Otherwise, it would have been classified at a higher level if it really had dangerous stuff in it. Instead, it was politically embarrassing stuff, the kind of stuff that politicians should be crucified for, but mostly get away with.

Right. And one of the more pathetic outcomes of this case, but I've quite enjoyed it, is seeing how the Justice Department isn't celebrating this outcome at all. I looked at their press release and usually you would have after you end a big case some kind of statement from the attorney general, Merrick Garland, you know, saying, oh, good,

good work on this, everyone. We got us espionage act conviction that we've been trying to seek for so long. Nobody involved in this case wanted to have their themselves quoted, I suppose, because I guess they know exactly what they did and how they were jeopardizing free speech rights and journalism in the U.S. But in contrast, Matthew Miller, State Department spokesperson, who we've all gotten to know as he defends Israel's actions in Gaza and U.S. support for it, he was repeating all the things that the State Department used to say about WikiLeaks causing harm and having blood on its hands. and just just spreading lies and I mean it's phenomenal to me the state department is more invested and defensive about this case than the justice department that actually was involved in litigating yeah hey all let me tell you about Roberts and Roberts brokerage ink nobody trusts the US dollar anymore foreign governments are stocking up on

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Try to always remember when we're talking about the importance of the leak to bring up the suffering of poor Julian Assange and Manning, too, for that matter. But then when we're talking about the suffering of these people, we've got to also bring up the importance of the leak. You know, I'm writing a book right now that's a history book that's just full of all kinds

of citations of WikiLeaks documents, State Department cables about America's relationship with Ukraine and various European countries and this and that and whatever, all through the history there. And it's so important for so much journalism on such a broad basis.

It's God's gift to journalism. This thing is the biggest best leak ever. Even, you know, as important as the Snowden thing was, it was only on one kind of subject, with a lot of sub-subjects and everything. It was huge and important, but this was just American foreign policy,

how we deal with Latin America, how we deal with the Europeans, with the Russians, with the entire Middle East, and the history of all kinds of things. I mean, the Glasby memo from 1990 and I think Kissinger memos from the 70s, and God knows what that they put out there. That's just, you could have never made a magic wish

for such a wonderful leak of truth to come out, for journalists to dig into and tell the people how the world really works here. See, you know? I know what cable you probably are most pleased to have for your book, because I know you're writing it on Ukraine, right? Yeah, and the whole Cold War, yeah. The local, but the cable, niet means niet. Right. Which was about Russia's NATO enlargement. I mean, that is a phenomenal phenomenal documentation of what led to the moment where Russia was invading Ukraine. Yep. And it's, for those not familiar, you'll find out when you pays your money. But no, it's William Burns. You can go to WikiLeaks and find it. And yet means yet it's from February, I think, second of 2008.

And it's our current CIA director, then ambassador to Russia, telling Condoleezza Rice, don't invite Ukraine into NATO. You don't understand how crazy this makes the Russians. They're going to react. They're going to prevent it one way or the other. And so if we keep pushing, they're going to prevent it the hard way. So we should just take it of them preventing it the easy way by just warning us not to, which is fair enough. And Connolly's or Rice goes, no, I know what I'm doing. And here we are, you know.

I know. All the history is just like that scoff you just made. God dang it. It doesn't have to be this way at all, and yet it is anyway. And yet, so that's the whole thing. And that's what this guy sacrificed his liberty for. And in a way, not that he deserves it or that it's not scandalous or evil or horrible in all the ways that it is. But there is a balance to it.

Like, man, he kicked their ass. And so then they got him back, you know? He really did get him good. Yeah, but also, as much as... there are things we can say about the precedent of him pleading guilty to this espionage act charge. I mean, it's true that a journalist or a publisher has never done this before in U.S. history. That is in the books, and we can chew over that for ever and ever. But it's been my firm belief, and I don't think you would disagree too much with me,

that the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Division for the Justice Department, others in the security state or military industrial complex would have wanted nothing more than to wake up to the news that Julian Assange had died at Belmarsh that he had... Of course.

His health had taken over and it took a turn for the worst and he was pronounced dead by prison officials at Belmarsh and then they would have wiped their hands clean but he walked out of that prison and he got on a plane and to me that was one of the more amazing things

that I've seen in recent memory because it was such a defeat for them. It's such a defeat for him to be alive. It's such a defeat that they're not going to extradite him to the United States. And it's such a defeat that we're reading in the Washington Post that they were panicking and fearful that their case was collapsing and they wanted to do anything they could to salvage it with a plea deal. And they were hopeful that Julian Assange wouldn't learn that it was falling apart

because then he would just maybe continue to go on with the appeal and try to win in a way that would affect the U.S.'s ability to extradite people from the U.K. and all of Europe. And so, I mean, it's just great all around. Yeah, it is. And just back one point, though, about the pretrial detention and how they wish that they could have killed them somehow in there by just burying him deep enough in that dungeon during the appeals process of his extradition, right? Pre-trial, punishment here um james claper the former director of national intelligence essentially said yeah we got our pound of flesh he said that uh the way he put it was he said asanches paid his dues which is not really the right term of it you know to use the right uh figure of speech to use

for that but whatever he was saying that we got our punishment we locked him up first in that embassy and then in the Belmarsh there for enough years that that essentially was his sentence and so we got our not justice but vengeance against this guy that we hate you know he summed it all up

and which just goes to show well that's why we need Julian Assange because a scum like Clapper you know the butcher of Croatia but that's James Clappers that's James Clapper's spin because he would have insight in that the case was collapsing. So someone at the Justice Department is saying, your friends,

your buddies in the national security state need to accept that this is over and this is all you're going to get. And they were looking at it and seeing that he had now served more time than anyone would if they were convicted of this charge. That was a big deal of like in December 23, he had now served the time that he would get if he was convicted in the United States. Wow. Although, that's assuming he didn't die in Florence, which would have probably been a higher possibility compared to Belmarsh, even. Right. So, I don't know. I don't know. As I think about the future, I don't know if Julian Assange returns to WikiLeaks. I don't know what part of international or global journalism wikiLeaks will play.

I do hope that they start to receive leaks and I do hope that Julian Assange does something to be involved. But I know that what he's been through in you talk to Gabriel, so you have insights into his state as well. I know that he wants to spend this time recovering from all of this before he does speak. He didn't go to any press conferences and talk. We haven't heard Julian Assange say anything other than what is, you know, I have the recording of the court hearing that was posted and I could hear his voice. He spoke in court when the judge was talking to him. But other than that, we haven't heard in his voice. And I'm anxious to hear him speak about all of this.

Yeah, I know, me too. I hope he takes a really thorough vacation, and then I have very little doubt that he's going to get back to running WikiLeaks and tweeting up a storm and mixing it up out there the way he always has done. And then we could talk about Australia and how the U.S. will probably work through Australia to try and control Julian Assange. That could make for some good conversation because they haven't had it good either. I mean, I don't know how much you know about what happened to David McBride, the whistleblower. Sure, yeah, he interviewed his lawyer. Yeah, and he's in prison right now. So Anthony Albanese, who became a good friend and supporter of Assange, was not supportive of David McBride who exposed war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. And, you know, the reason I understand, the reason I've seen for why he's in prison and not free,

even though they did an inquiry into war crimes is because they wanted to punish him so that they didn't have to act on his revelations and hold any soldiers accountable. Like, it's this weird thing of like, we're going to punish the whistleblower. Well, actually not weird. We do this in the United States.

It was punishing the whistleblower so they didn't have to punish the soldiers. Right. And it's a huge thing, by the way, Afghanistan's one of my things. So the Afghan, pardon me, the Australian Special Forces committed numerous war crimes over the course of years there. And there's all kinds of heroic whistleblowers and real scandalous behavior there. And, of course, only riding shotgun on America's war where the Australians had no business there in the first place anyway.

And where we lost the war anyway. And shouldn't have done it all along. the critics were right all along and so you're just talking about innocent people being murdered for less than nothing you know anti-nothing this is the worst um and so then yeah no surprise that they uh lock up the whistleblowers you know i think there was one commander who was indicted but they're going to draw the process out forever if i remember the last update on that one because he's kind of he was their highest most decorated special forces operative and he's now disgrace but i think not imprisoned that seems right to me that seems right yeah it's been a

little while since i caught up with that stuff but yeah um i mean i did interview mcbride's lawyer but i can't keep it all straight anymore i got what biden's got early onset bidenism here in the brain um listen uh anything else important on your mind about the assange thing here Kevin. Other than, like, let me pat you on the back for what a great job you've done this whole time. And I don't know how much Assange knows about the work you've done, but I bet you he knows something and appreciates the hell out of it. I sure do, as you know. But the floor's yours. Thank you to having me on your show regularly. I should say before we recorded someone who regularly listens to your show, sent me a message and was grateful for the journalism that I had done

and said they were introduced to me by listening to your show. Cool. So I'm pleased that this show has helped me find readers. So I'm grateful for that. And I'll just take, as I give you my final words, I just want to say that I'm disappointed that there are some people who didn't survive to see Julian Assange walk free, who had endorsed my book, who have been supporters, Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, didn't make it, didn't make it.

Noam Chomsky is alive, although the media pronounced him dead. And then we found out from his wife that he's actually still okay. Well, he's not okay, but he's ailing, but he's living in Brazil and trying to recover from a stroke as much as you can when you're 95. But anyway, he got to see it. John Pilger, though, great journalist on U.S. Empire did not live. And there's a journalist named Gavin McFadden, who was the good mentor of Julian Assange. And then a big part of the WikiLeaks legal team, who I saw all the time who was on TV and supportive of me, particularly during Chelsea Manning's court-martial, was Michael Ratner.

And he was and he was just, oh, man, he was so good at what he did. And I just, I'm disappointed that these people didn't survive. But this moment's for them because Julian Assange, so Julian Assange told Jeremy Garland. Corbin this, that this is everyone's victory. Everybody, you know, you, me, all of us talking about this constantly when so much of the political and media clasps or didn't want to talk about it at all, we forced this. Stella and Julian, everyone will say we created the space for plea deal negotiations so that Julian could be free. Yeah. Well, look, I think that's really good of you to mention those people that have been lost on the way who were such great fighters on this. And

of course. Ratner, man, he died young too. I don't know how old he was, but boy, should he be here right now. I think Pilger had lived a good long life. But old Ratner, man, he got cheated out of this one. But anyway, that's cool of you to mention all those people and their effort this whole time. And yeah, I'm sure that's right. I saw where Stella Assange had said that,

On Twitter, someone had sent me a link where she was saying that she was so grateful for the Libertarian Party for having Gabriel out to speak about it at the recent convention in D.C. And how that helped, too. You know, as you say, creating that space, keeping the controversy going, making sure that the name is always in the headline and make sure the people of power know that out here we really care about this, you know? Exactly. We didn't have a lot of members of Congress. But we had libertarian Republicans like Thomas Massey, and we had some progressive Democrats, only a few, but they were important to try and make some kind of a stink about this for Joe Biden and the Justice Department. And those are the people that, as we go forward, I really hope they look at the espionable. Act and overhaul it. There have been some attempts to reform it, but I'm, if there's anything that I do after this, that I pick up and continue from this Assange case, it will be, um, helping others argue that the espionage act has to be either abolished entirely or completely reformed and overhauled. And there are people who, the few Congress people,

that supported ending the case against Assange. Those are the people who first need to pick this up and do something. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, everything Woodrow Wilson touched went completely to hell. And, I mean, the name of the act is espionage act. So the average Joe might think that that's what it's about. You know, people who are acting on behalf of foreign powers, pilfering secrets at the expense of the country.

Not when a heroic whistleblower reveals the horrible criminal truth to a journalist doing their job, like in the American way. It's such an obvious stark black magic marker line between those things. And what the hell are we talking about? It's not even apples and oranges. It's entirely separate issues. The idea that they would apply the Espionage Act to somebody like Manning or to, well, I guess Manning was in the service. still but um certainly to somebody like assange but even applying it to the leakers um is completely insane and i guess uh legend has it the most famous case of that era the most famous case of that

era was eugene deb's a socialist giving an anti-war speech so that should tell you everything you need to know right about why we should get rid of it because it is for going after people who dissent who use freedom of speech yeah and you know i don't know they do prosecute spies from time to time, but I don't think they use the espionage act. They use the espionage act against leakers. And, you know, Bush did it against three or four. And then the way I remember it, I bet you know the count and everything. The Obama government used the espionage act against more whistleblowers, more government leakers,

than all other presidents combined before him. I think it got to nine or ten. And all of these leaked cases were most. publications in the media so they they disclosed they spoke to a reporter or uh yeah the information ended up on the internet through their actions yeah and then but meanwhile when it comes to real spies they get charged with real spying laws you know i don't know what they are which it does happen from time to time but um anyway uh look i'll let you go and have a great rest of your Friday afternoon, but I just want to thank you again for all your great efforts here in your

book and your time and tell everybody to go look at the dissenter.org for the latest and best from Kevin Gostola. Thanks, Kevin. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.