Biden Administration 'Lacks Moral Character' Regarding Assange's Extradition

The US embassy said a “sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange” and that they’re able to provide their assurance as he is not charged with an eligible offense, but this did not address the concern that Assange can be tried for a more severe espionage charge which could lead to the death penalty, one report notes.

On Sunday, it was reported by an American news source that the Australian government asked the US to offer Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, a “felony plea deal” allowing him to return home. Days later, the US Embassy in London submitted “assurances” to potentially avoid an appeal in the case against the WikiLeaks founder.

“Assange will not be prejudiced by reason of nationality with respect to which defenses he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing,” the U.S. Embassy in London claimed. “Specifically, if extradited, Assange 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.”

The US embassy added that a decision as to the “applicability” of the First Amendment is “exclusively within the purview of the US courts”, but the assurance did not specify whether the US government believes the First Amendment rights under the US Constitution apply to a non-US citizen, one journalist noted.

On Wednesday, the host of AM Wake Up and Slow News Day, Steve Poikonen joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour to delve deeper into the recent report. Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon asked Poikonen if the Biden administration “plans to have Assange die in London’s Belmarsh prison”, where he has been imprisoned for five years. His incarceration has been condemned by international human rights organizations as well as the UN human rights officials.

“It certainly seems that way. And if it's not that they want him to expire in the British dungeon, it's at least that they kick it down the road to the next administration. Not only does the Biden administration lack the cognitive function to make a decision, they lack the moral character to stand by anyone that they made by hook or by crook in the first place,” said Poikonen.

“The way that the appeal for the assurances were worded, it leaves a lot of room for the British High Court to step in and say, ‘okay, you didn't assure anything; in fact, you contradict stuff you've already entered into the record’. So, it'll be interesting to see what the court does with this as well.”

Regarding the US’ “reassurances” on the issue of the First Amendment, Poikonen suggested that while Assange may be able to say the words “First Amendment”, he is not entitled to any of those rights nor does the US consider him to be a journalist, which they have argued in the past and continue to argue.

“The First Amendment doesn't apply in the eyes of the courts. To say nothing of the fact that diplomatic assurances have nothing to do with the US criminal Justice Department,” said Poikonen. “You're talking about two entirely different spheres of the federal government, and one of them have the ability to make assurances, the other does not, and that's the diplomatic assurances that they're getting.”

“If Assange was allowed to present a First Amendment defense - and this is what his legal team has argued - it's the whole reason it was considered by the High Court in the first place, the entire case would fall apart because the US would then have to somehow prove that what WikiLeaks did was different than every other publishing outlet in the history of publishing outlets,” he explained. “So, the US doesn't want that case. They don't want Julian Assange on US territory.”

“Assange is a 52-year-old man who's been in very, very poor health for the last five years, specifically because of the treatment he's endured at the hands of being detained without being charged of anything," he added.

When asked what Assange could do to address these growing issues, Poikonen suggested the European Court of Human Rights, but admitted that either way, Assange may be subjected to multi-level surveillance or a form of “permanent monitoring that any dissident would be subjected to for the rest of their lives”.

Assange first founded WikiLeaks in Australia in 2006. Four years later, WikiLeaks released almost half a million documents relating to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In August, Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Assange based on a woman’s allegation of rape and another woman's allegation of molestation. The warrant was withdrawn shortly afterward due to insufficient evidence. Assange has also denied the allegations.

Assange then traveled to Britain and afterward, Swedish police issued an international warrant for his arrest. In June of 2012, he entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking asylum. After Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno withdrew Assange’s asylum status in 2019, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.

In May of 2019, the US government indicted Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors claimed that he “conspired” with US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to “hack” into a Pentagon computer. Months later, Sweden would drop their rape investigation.

And most recently, in March of 2022, Britain's top court refused Assange permission to appeal against his extradition. Assange now faces 17 Espionage Act charges and a charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.