'Cannot afford to look away': Mehdi Hasan urges Biden to curb Julian Assange’s prosecution

03 May 2023

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden and his administration to halt the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, deeming his indictment a clear violation of both freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Assange's indictment, which occurred in 2018, "alleges he conspired with former Army Intelligence Officer Chelsea Manning and others from 2009 to 2011 to obtain and publish national defense information about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," citing "items supplied by Manning and later published by WikiLeaks allegedly" contains "some 750,000 classified State Department documents and cables as well as several CIA-interrogation videos."

Then, in June 2022, "the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom approved the U.S. government's request to extradite Assange," and now "he faces trial under an 18-count indictment for conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. If convicted, Assange faces a potential maximum penalty of 175 years in prison--in effect, a life sentence."

Along with his on-air monologue, Hasan tweeted Wednesday, "On World Press Freedom Day, the Biden administration should end its prosecution of Julian Assange. As I've argued before, whether you like Assange or not, consider him a journalist or not, his case is about free speech & the freedom to publish."

Hasan began the segment saying, "Sometimes to defend basic principles like free speech or a free press, you have to defend people you may find distasteful, maybe even people you loathe. And with that in mind, we need to talk about Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Some of you might not like what I have to say, but hear me out. A British court ruled on Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges that could result in decades of jail time, reversing a lower court decision in the long-running case against the embattled WikiLeaks founder."

The progressive host then pointed out the fact both sides of the political aisle — Republican and Democrat — have criticized Assange, saying, "The right didn't like him because they saw him as anti-American and Australian far left is leaking US military secrets and undermining our global War on Terror Post 2016. Liberals didn't like him because of his role in leaking DNC emails, undermining Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and helping Donald Trump win."

Quashing Assange's prosecution is "about the First Amendment," Hasan argued. "It's about the freedom of the press. It's about the freedom to publish without government interference or censorship. And don't take my word for it. Back in 2013, a former official in the Obama Justice Department admitted that the problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists."

Hasan continued:

Hacking of course isn't journalism, but here's the thing: One of the key witnesses that the U.S. government is relying on to make their case is that Assange is a criminal hacker. It's said to have recanted much of his testimony in an interview with a newspaper over the summer, but you might not know that, as most of the U.S. media didn't cover it. Still, it's the use of the espionage act in this case that's most concerning. It's not supposed to be used against acts of journalism. And by the way, the documents and videos about the Afghan and Iraq wars that WikiLeaks released in 2010, which included footage of a U.S. helicopter allegedly killing civilians in Baghdad, was certainly in the public interest. So look, if you think this case isn't about free speech and the free press, then you have to ask why some of the world's top human rights and civil liberties organizations are campaigning on Assange's behalf. And if you don't think the Biden administration is following in the footsteps of Trump's on this issue is a huge mistake. If you don't think a future Trump administration won't use and leverage and weaponize this precedent of Democrats in power going after Assange to go after the rest of us in their 'mainstream media' or the fake news media as they call it. Well, you are more trusting than I am. Dangerous precedents are being set and we journalists cannot afford to look away or pretend it has nothing to do with us. Look, again, I am no fan of Julian Assange as a person. I'm appalled that he decided to suck up to the Trump family or that he wouldn't give the women who accused him of sexual assault their day in court. But you don't have to like Assange or WikiLeaks to be very, very concerned about the action against him that the Biden administration is taking. To borrow a line from Noom Chomsky: 'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.' To reiterate, going after the publisher of information that a government deems classified or secret is a pretty illiberal and authoritarian thing to do. It's wrong when Trump did it, and it's wrong when Biden does it. I would also point out the irony that the U.S. government has spent the past decade pursuing Assange, while failing to prosecute any of the alleged war crimes by U.S. military personnel that Assange and WikiLeaks revealed in 2010. But let me leave you with the words of British journalists. James Ball, who worked for WikiLeaks a decade ago, knows Assange personally and is an outspoken critic of his. Yet even Ball has said extraditing and prosecuting Assange is a threat to free media. Assange might be an a-hole. Scratch that. Assange is an a-hole, but we are going to have to stand up for him anyway.

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