Is the imperium showing suspicions about its intended quarry? It is hard to believe it, but the US House Intelligence
Committee is on a mission of discovery. Its subject: a Yahoo News report disclosing much material that was already in the public domain on the plot to kidnap or, failing that, poison Julian
Assange. Given that such ideas were aired by officials within the Central Intelligence Agency, this struck home. On the
Yahoo News “Skulduggery” podcast, Committee chairman and Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said, “We are seeking information about it now.”
Making sure to put himself in the clear of having any knowledge of plans against Assange, Schiff claimed that the
committee had sought a response from “the agencies” (the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence)
after the publication of the Yahoo News piece. As to whether the agencies had responded, Schiff was not forthcoming. “I
can’t comment on what we’ve heard back yet.”
This modest effort might show that Schiff is growing a conscience regarding the US case against the founder of
WikiLeaks, centred on charges relating to espionage and computer intrusion. If so, it is a bit late coming, given ample
evidence that US intelligence services not only conducted surveillance on Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy
in London but contemplated his potential abduction and assassination.
Had the dozing Schiff cast an eye on last year’s extradition hearings mounted by the US Justice Department in the UK, he
would have been privy to the efforts of the Spanish private security firm UC Global, hired by US intelligence
operatives, to conduct operations against Assange. But such humble representatives should not be expected to keep
abreast of the news, even as members of a House Intelligence Committee.
For the rest of us who do, one of the former employees of the Spanish company gave testimony at the Old Bailey claiming that he had been asked to pilfer “a nappy of a baby which according to the company’s
security personnel deployed at the embassy, regularly visited Mr Assange”. As UC Global’s CEO David Morales, currently
the subject of a criminal investigation in Spain, explained, “the Americans wanted to establish paternity”. In December 2017, Assange’s lengthy stay at the embassy was proving so
irritating that the “Americans … had even suggested that more extreme measures should be deployed against the ‘guest’ to
put an end to the situation”. One way of doing so would be staging an “accident” that “would allow persons to enter from
outside the embassy and kidnap the asylee”. Very School of the Americas, that.
Congress has shown some gurgling interest in dropping the case against Assange. House Resolution 1175, sponsored by then Democrat House Representative Tulsi Gabbard, expressed “the sense of the House of Representatives that
newsgathering activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States should drop all charges
against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.” On the Republican side, former US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah
Palin has also become a convert. “I made a mistake some years ago, not supporting Julian Assange – thinking that he was a bad guy.” Since then, she had
“learned a lot”. “He deserves a pardon.”
The phalanx of civil society groups is also urging US Attorney General Merrick Garland to stop the prosecution. On
October 15, Garland received a letter signed by 25 organisations including the ACLU, PEN America and Human Rights Watch, raising the US intelligence efforts
against Assange as imperilling the case. “The Yahoo News story only heightens our concerns about the motivations behind
this prosecution and about the dangerous precedent that is being set.” As the joint signatories had stated in a previous
letter in February, “News organizations frequently and necessarily publish classified information in order to inform the
public of matters of profound significance.”
Unfortunately, a good number of the US political classes remain vengefully eager. Many Democrats will never forgive
Assange for releasing the Podesta emails and compromising Hillary Clinton’s shoddy electoral campaign in 2016. The former CIA Director and Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo holds up the Republican line, having designated WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia”.
And no one should forget that the current US President Joe Biden sought the head of WikiLeaks in a manner that was
almost childishly enthusiastic while he was Vice President in the Obama administration. “We are looking at that right
now,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in December 2010. “The Justice department is taking a look at that.” Assange exposed and therefore, we depose. It took
some of the more sober individuals in the Obama administration to throw cold water on the effort, arguing that any prosecution of WikiLeaks raised thorny First Amendment issues. You go for this
Australian’s scalp, then where do we stop? The editorial staff of the New York Times? The news foragers at the Washington Post? The opportunities were endlessly dangerous.
The US prosecution of Assange, centred on that First World War relic of suppression called the Espionage Act, is about
to enter its next phase in what can only be described as torture via procedure. (To date, Assange has been refused bail
and left to languish in Belmarsh Prison.) In the UK High Court, prosecutors are hoping to overturn the findings made by
Judge Vanessa Baraitser in her January 4 ruling against extradition, impugning expert evidence on Assange’s mental health and the court’s assessment of it. These
grounds are almost criminally flimsy, but then again, so is this entire effort against this daring, revolutionary
publisher. Assange’s defence team will have much to work with, though Schiff and his colleagues may be asleep as matters
unfold.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Email: bkampmark@gmail.com