Julian Assange, an ally of Vladimir Putin and seemingly Donald Trump as well has at long last been booted from the Ecuador embassy in London and was promptly arrested and carried away by London Metropolitan police (see the image at the end of this post). Unless one has been living under a rock - or watching only Fox News - it is common knowledge that Assange and his Wikileaks organization was the vehicle through which emails and documents stolen by Russian intelligence officers were released to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump associate Roger Stone remains under federal indictment for lying to Congress about his communications with Assange and Russian intelligence operatives. The Guardian looks at Assange arrest while the New York Times looks at the larger implications. First highlights from The Guardian:
Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after the South American country withdrew asylum from the WikiLeaks founder. Assange had been granted refuge at the embassy while on bail in the UK over sexual assault allegations against him in Sweden.The Metropolitan police said: “He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster magistrates court as soon as is possible. “The MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster magistrates court, and was invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”
Assange was shouting and gesticulating as he was carried out of the embassy in handcuffs by seven men and put into a waiting Met police van, video footage showed. He appeared to be carrying a book.
Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, said on Twitter: “In a sovereign decision, Ecuador withdrew the asylum status to Julian Assange after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.”
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, tweeted: “Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. He has hidden from the truth for years. Thank you Ecuador and President Lenín Moreno for your cooperation with the Foreign Office to ensure Assange faces justice.”
Assange claimed that if he was extradited to Sweden he might be arrested by the US and face charges relating to the publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks.
The piece in the New York Times looks at the wider picture. Here are excerpts:US authorities have never officially confirmed that they have charged Assange, but in November 2018 a mistake in a document filed in an unrelated case hinted that criminal charges might have been prepared in secret.
The United States Justice Department has filed criminal charges against Mr. Assange, 47, related to the publication of classified documents, a fact that prosecutors accidentally made public in November. He also faces a charge in a British court of jumping bail, . . .Mr. Assange is also suspected of aiding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by releasing material stolen from the computers of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. In July, the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking those computers, and the indictment contends that at least one of them was in contact with WikiLeaks.
During the 2016 campaign, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee, leading to a series of revelations that embarrassed the party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. United States investigators have said that the systems were hacked by Russian agents.
Mr. Assange made no secret of his intent to damage Mrs. Clinton, but he has insisted that he did not get the emails from Russia.
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