The Breakdown - The Saga of Wikileaks' Julian Assange is Finally Coming to an End

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

After 5 years in prison in the UK (and nearly 5 years before that holed away in the Ecuador embassy in London), Julian Assange is on the verge of a plea deal with the United States that would let him return home to Australia. NLW gives the full wild story. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nathanielwhittemorecrypto Subscribe to the newsletter: https://breakdown.beehiiv.com/ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, June 25th, and today we are talking about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, finally being released from prison. Before we get into it, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, a wild one today. After five long years of imprisonment, Julian Assange has been released on bail and is less than a day away from total freedom.

The WikiLeaks founder agreed to a plea deal with U.S. authorities on Monday. The deal would see Assange plead guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to receive and disclose classified U.S. National Defense documents in breach of the Espionage Act. The Justice Department will be seeking a 62-month sentence. the amount of time Assange has already served in Belmarsh Prison in London. This means that once the deal is approved in court, Assange will be free to return home to Australia having served his time. The case has been scheduled to be heard on Wednesday morning in the federal district court for the northern Mariana Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Assange boarded a plane to leave the UK on Monday afternoon, accompanied by a top-ranking Australian diplomat. Wikileaks published a statement on Twitter, which read, Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison on the morning of June 24th, having spent 1901 days there. This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grassroots organizers, press freedom campaigners, legislators, and leaders from across the political spectrum all the way to the United Nations. This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized. After more than five years in a two-by-three-meter cell, isolated for 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife

Stella Assange and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars. Wikileaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption in human rights abuses. holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles and for the people's right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian's freedom is our freedom. So how did this come about?

While grassroots organizations have been pushing for Assange to be released for years, a major turning point came in 2023 when Australia began exerting political pressure. In September of last year, a cross-party delegation of Australian politicians traveled to Washington to lobby for Assange's release. This February, shortly before his final appeal against extradition, a motion was put on the floor of Australian Parliament to urge the UK and U.S. governments to return Assange to Australia. During the debates, independent Andrew Wilkie,

who had been pushing this issue, said it was, quote, time for all of us to take a stand. The Prime Minister and his government joined with independence in voting for the motion, which passed 86 to 42. On news of Assange's release, the Australian government avoided discussing the ongoing legal proceedings in depth, but said, Prime Minister Albanese has been clear.

Mr. Assange's case has dragged on for too long, and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration. The U.S. government has not yet released a statement on the matter. Washington Post sources suggest that for several months, Justice Department officials have been discussing ways that Assange can be held accountable without extradition to the U.S. At an administration official, speaking under the condition of anonymity, said that the White House was not involved in the decision. So let's do a little bit of a background here. The story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is one that defined a generation. It fundamentally shifted the understanding of power, freedom, and war for everyone who came of age during the late 2000s. Wikileaks demonstrated the emerging potential

of the internet, which allowed a small news organization to speak truth to power at an unprecedented level. The organization was founded in late 2006 with a mission to disclose leaked documents which revealed corruption and malfeasance within corporations and governments. When launched, the website was emblazoned with the slogan, The Method is Transparency, the goal is justice. Wikileks founders included dissidents, journalists, and technologists spread across Taiwan, Europe, the U.S., Australia, and South Africa. Their early focus was on oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa. While reporting on oppressive regimes and corrupt corporate behavior was certainly present, none of it gathered the same level of attention as the leaks of

classified U.S. documents. One of the early leaks in 2007 was a procedure manual for Camp Delta, a detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. The document revealed that some prisoners were off limits to the Red Cross, a procedure the U.S. military had previously denied. The manual also included methods for evading the protocols of the Geneva Convention, which defines the rights of wartime prisoners. By the stage of these releases, the U.S. had been waging war in Afghanistan for six years in Iraq for four. Photos documenting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghrae Prison had been released by the Washington Post in 2004 just one year into that war. Large protests had been ongoing since the wars began, but according to Pew Research, the majority opinion of U.S.

citizens first turned against the war in 2006. WikiLeaks had perhaps its largest impact with the release of a video in 2010, which they titled Collateral Murder. The video showed a U.S. military helicopter opening fire on a group of 10 civilians in Baghdad during the 2007 surge. The helicopter patrol had been on a mission to root out Iraqi militants firing on advanced U.S. troops with rifles and RPGs. A crew member is heard requesting permission to engage. One second later, the crew member shouts he's got an RPG and opens fire on the group. Once the firing stops, a crew member laughs and says, I hit him. Another crew member responds, oh yeah, look at those dead bastards. Seven men were killed during the attack, including a pair of Reuters reporters. The RPG was actually

a telephoto lens, carried by one of the journalists. The video. also depicts two additional attacks on a van in a building. Two children who were sheltering in the van were wounded during the attack, and after discovering this, one crew member states, well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle. At another point during the attack, the helicopter continues to fire rounds at a wounded man while he is being rescued. It's worth noting that there was some dispute surrounding WikiLeaks editorializing the footage to present it as unjustified attacks against unarmed civilians. In a 2010 interview with Assange, Stephen Colbert said, you have edited this tape and you have given it a title called collateral murder.

That's not leaking, that's a pure editorial. Pentagon officials backed their original determination that the helicopter crew had acted within the rules of engagement after identifying an RPG. Ultimately, however, there's the Court of Law and the Court of Public Opinion, and the footage clearly had a lasting impact on the U.S. population. Now, during this time, WikiLeaks was prolific, releasing hundreds of thousands of documents with all sorts of topics ranging from internet censorship to state-level corruption to tax evasion. The website published 92,000 documents related to the Afghan war,

detailing incidents of friendly fire and civilian casualties. In October 2010, Wikileaks published 400,000 documents related to the Iraq War. The Department of Defense labeled the Iraq War logs as, quote, the largest leak of classified documents at its history. That November, Wikileaks collaborated with the New York Times, the Guardian, and three European news organizations to publish a leak of over 250,000 domestic cables. The documents gave an inside look at U.S. intelligence operations dating all the way back to 1966.

In May of 2010, Wikileaks had changed their policy to no longer solicit classified information after the arrest of Chelsea Manning. Manning had been a military analyst in Iraq and had access to classified databases. She was the source for the collateral murder video, the diplomatic cables, as well as the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Manning was court-martialed on 22 offenses, including a aiding the enemy, which can carry a death sentence. She said that she had leaked the documents in order to spark a public debate about the

nation's, quote, obsession with killing and capturing people. After pleading guilty in 2013, she was sentenced to 35 years at a maximum security military barracks. Her sentence was commuted by the Obama administration in 2017. In December 2010, WikiLeaks was having problems accepting donations and keeping their website hosting online. The organization began accepting Bitcoin to get around payment bans. In fact, the move alarmed Satoshi Nakamoto, who was still active in the community at the time. In a post on the Bitcoin talk forum, Satoshi described the move as, quote, kicking a hornet's nest. Satoshi added,

I make this appeal to WikiLeaks to not try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage. The following day, Satoshi posts their final message and disappeared forever. Hello, friends. Before we get back to the rest of the show, I want you to join me at Permissionless. Permissionless is a conference for Cryptonatives by CryptoNatives. And the reason it's so important this year is that despite regulators' best attempts to push industry founders, devs, and executives out of the U.S., the U.S. remains the beating heart of crypto.

Today, the tide is turning. Policymakers have pivoted from fighting crypto to embracing it, which will lead to the creation of new financial products, new applications, and all the time. ultimately new adoption. Permissionless is a conference for those using and building on-chain products. It's home to the power users, the devs, and the builders. And what's more, I'm going to be there. The location is Salt Lake City. The dates are October 9th to the 11th, and right now, tickets are just $199. Towards the end of the month, they're going up to $499, and if you want 10% off, use code breakdown 10 when you check out. If you go to the Blockworks website, blockworks.com, there will be lots of information about how to register, and again use code Breakdown 10 to get 10% off. By late 2010, the walls had begun

closing in on Assange. An arrest warrant had been issued by Swedish authorities for sexual assault. Assange decided to remain in the UK rather than return to Sweden to face the charges. After an interval red notice was issued, Assange turned himself into UK authorities. He was granted bail and began to fight against extradition. Asange claimed the charges had been trumped up, stating, quote, this has been a very successful smear campaign and a very wrong one. He also claimed that Swedish extradition was actually, quote, an attempt to get me into a jurisdiction, which will then make it easier to extradite me to the U.S. In June 2012, after losing his final appeal against extradition,

Assange applied for political asylum in Ecuador and took up residence in the nation's London embassy. The living quarters were ridiculously small, and this period became something of a media circus. Assange delivered statements from the embassy balcony to throngs of reporters, urging the U.S. to drop what he characterized their witch hunt against WikiLeaks. The Metropolitan Police stood guard around the clock, waiting to arrest Assange if he ever set foot outside the embassy. WikiLeaks would later show that the CIA had even discussed plans to kidnap Assange from the embassy or even assassinate him, although these plans were not approved. In 2016, of course, a U.S. election year, Wikileaks began to publish politically sensitive material.

The release of emails from Hillary Clinton's private email server were the result of an unrelated Freedom of Information Act request, but WikiLeaks set up a search engine to assist the public in browsing the emails. Later in the year, Wikileaks published hacked emails from Democratic National Committee, which demonstrated a bias against Clinton's primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. A month before the election, the emails of former White House chief of staff and chair of Clinton's campaign John Podesta were leaked. The fallout from these leaks was immense. The Ecuadorian embassy shut off Assange's internet access after the Podesta leak,

accusing him of election interference. The notorious Mueller investigation would later conclude that Assange had received the leaks from Russian state-sponsored hackers, although those claims were later discredited. That brings us to the Trumpiers in the U.S. In March of 2017, WikiLeaks began publishing the largest leak of C-S., documents in history. It detailed the agency's hacking capabilities, including software designed to break into smartphones and other internet-connected devices. This was the final straw that elevated Assange to a priority issue. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that charges were being prepared.

CIA director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks, quote, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. This changed the framing of WikiLeaks entirely. During the Obama administration, the DOJ had been reluctant to push forward with charges against a media organization. There were concerns that WikiLeaks actions were indistinguishable from those of the New York Times. Labeling WikiLeaks as a non-state intelligence organization provided the Trump administration covered to go after Assange as though he were a foreign adversary rather than a journalist. At the time, Assange pointed out the danger, stating, the head of the CIA determining who is a publisher, who's not a publisher, who's a journalist,

who's not a journalist, is totally out of line. In April 2019, Ecuador withdrew their protection of Assange and UK police were invited into the embassy. A disheveled Assange was carried out and taken to prison. Simultaneously, the U.S. Justice Department formally charged Assange and demanded his extradition. A superseding indictment alleged 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act. The DOJ went to pains to draw the distinction between a journalist receiving material from a source and actively participating in the gathering of classified documents. The charges related to communications with Chelsea Manning, where Assange was alleged to have, quote, actively encouraged her to hack into Pentagon systems. There was also a heavy focus on the publication of unredacted names of confidential military sources

and active war zones. U.S. Attorney Zach Terwilliger said, The United States has not charged Assange for passively obtaining or receiving classified information. Assange is not charged simply because he is a publisher. The debate at the time centered around whether Assange was truly a journalist. There was an argument that freedom of the press could be eliminated in the case of someone who publishes in an irresponsible manner. First Amendment groups recognize charging a journalist under the Espionage Act for the danger that it was. The ACLU said the indictment, quote, establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets.

Even the editorial board of the New York Times was uncomfortable with the charges, writing, The administration has begun well by charging Mr. Assange with an indisputable crime. But there is always a risk with this administration that the prosecution of Mr. Assange could become an assault on the First Amendment and whistleblowers. Assange was found guilty of breaching his bail terms and sent to Belmarsh prison to await his extradition hearing. Within the first month, UN experts on torture visited Assange and reported that, quote, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronicing

and intense psychological trauma. The UK government disagreed with that assessment. The following years featured a series of appeals against extradition. In 2021, Stella Assange claimed that Julian had suffered a mini-stroke during one hearing and required medication. In February of this year, a last ditch effort to seek further leave to appeal began. Assange was too sick to be in attendance. The High Court sought assurances from the U.S. government that Assange would not be subject to the death penalty and would be protected by the First Amendment despite not being a citizen. While the DOJ assured the court that the death penalty would not be sought or imposed, they said that the applicability of the First Amendment was exclusively a matter for the courts.

In May, the High Court found that U.S. assurances were not sufficient and granted Assange leave to appeal. The series of events had left the Biden administration in something of a no-win situation. Although the White House is not formally involved in DOJ matters, they found themselves tangled up in a deeply unpopular prosecution during an election year. Assange had been confined for more than a decade, first in the Ecuadorian embassy, and then in the most notoriously brutal prison in the UK. Public opinion had long since shifted and allied governments had finally withdrawn their support. court. It had become clear that the administration was stuck in a quagmire and needed to find a way out without

condoning Assange's actions. Although the DOJ has reduced the indictment to a single charge, there is still concern the case could set an awful precedent for press freedoms. Asange will plead guilty to conspiring to receive classified documents from Chelsea Manning and to, quote, willfully communicate the information. Domestic press might enjoy the protection of the First Amendment, but this still implies that journalists could be targeted using the Espionage Act when it comes to matters of national security. Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement, alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets. That's what investigative journalists do every day.

Libertarian former member of Congress, Justin Amash, is furious at the way this production has been handled, tweeting, Julian Assange is free following a plea deal. While his release is great news, he never should have been charged under the Espionage Act, an unconstitutional and abusive law that has no place in a free society. It's a weapon of selective enforcement that violates due process and threatens free speech. Others are a little more celebratory. Jose Emmanuel Santana, an MIT research affiliate who worked under Noam Chomsky, wrote, Julian Assange's liberation today marks a monumental victory for freedom of the press and the right to truth. This monument stands as a powerful reminder that the pursuit of justice and transparency will not be silenced.

Asanja's resilience has ignited a global movement, proving that truth seekers can and will overcome oppression. I think for Bitcoiners, part of the reason that this has always been of more interest than maybe for other groups is that it has always seemed like a reminder that freedoms and rights are not ultimately granted by governments, but asserted by people in hard-fought struggles. This has been and continues to be a moment of question and stress on those freedoms and rights, and will likely continue to be so for some time. For now, though, it seems like much of this saga is coming to a close. That's going to do it for today's breakdown.

Appreciate you listening as always, and until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.