{"id":2283602,"date":"2024-06-25T20:55:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T00:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wikileakss-julian-assange-pleads-guilty-in-deal-with-us-that-secures-his-freedom-and-ends-legal-fight-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2024-06-25T20:59:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T00:59:16","slug":"wikileakss-julian-assange-pleads-guilty-in-deal-with-us-that-secures-his-freedom-and-ends-legal-fight-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wikileakss-julian-assange-pleads-guilty-in-deal-with-us-that-secures-his-freedom-and-ends-legal-fight-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks\u2019s Julian Assange pleads guilty in deal with US that secures his freedom and ends legal fight &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">40<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwikileakss-julian-assange-pleads-guilty-in-deal-with-us-that-secures-his-freedom-and-ends-legal-fight-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2283602&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, \u200c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-president-trump-to-pardon-gen-michael-flynn-per-report\/\" title=\"BREAKING: President Trump to Pardon Gen. Michael Flynn, Per Report\">pleaded guilty<\/a> to\u2063 a single felony \u2063charge for publishing U.S. military secrets,\u200c as part of a plea \u2063deal with Justice Department prosecutors. This agreement allows\u200d him \u200cto\u2063 avoid\u200b prison\u2063 in America and return to his native Australia.\u2063 The plea was entered in\u2062 a\u200b federal court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. Assange had been\u200c detained in the\u200b UK\u200c for five\u200b years, fighting extradition to the U.S. on charges under\u2063 the Espionage Act that could have led to a significant\u200d prison \u2064sentence. The plea deal\u2062 ends a \u200cprolonged legal battle\u200d involving serious questions about press\u2062 freedom and national \u200bsecurity. Both WikiLeaks and the\u200c Justice Department claimed success with the deal, with WikiLeaks expressing gratitude for \u200bthe support Assange received. \u200dAs \u2063a condition of his plea, Assange \u200dis required to destroy certain information provided to WikiLeaks.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands \u2014<\/strong> WikiLeaks founder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/julian-assange\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Julian Assange<\/a> pleaded guilty to a single felony charge for publishing U.S. military secrets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3057721\/julian-assange-who-leaked-hundreds-of-thousands-of-stolen-classified-documents-to-be-freed-in-plea-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors<\/a> that secures his freedom and concludes a drawn-out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/an-infamous-florida-man-is-in-biden-dojs-crosshairs\/\" title=\"An Infamous Florida Man Is in Biden DOJ\u2019s Crosshairs\">legal saga<\/a> that raised divisive questions about press freedom and national security.<\/p>\n<p>The plea was entered Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, center, arrives at the United States courthouse where he is expected enter a plea deal in Saipan, Mariana Islands, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo\/Eugene Hoshiko)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Though the deal with prosecutors required him to admit guilt to a single felony count, it would also permit him to return to his native Australia without spending any time in an American prison. He had been jailed in the United Kingdom for the last five years, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/julian-assange-wikileaks-extradition-timeline-77a759d7408ebeb24d026a7c2c00feb3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>fighting extradition<\/a> to the United States on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction.<\/p>\n<p>The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of victory, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process. WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website that Assange founded in 2006, applauded the announcement of the deal, saying it was grateful for \u201call who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Assange arrived at court in a dark suit, with a tie loosened around the collar, after flying from Britain on a charter plane accompanied by members of his legal team and Australian officials, including the top Australian diplomat in the United Kingdom accompanied Assange on the flight<\/p>\n<p>Inside the courthouse, he answered basic questions from U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and appeared to listen intently as terms of the deal were discussed. As a condition of his plea, he will be required to destroy information that was provided to WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n<p>The plea deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest and presumably final chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-tuck-female-draft-into-defense-bill\/\" title=\"Democrats Tuck Female Draft Into Defense Bill\">national security hawks<\/a> who insist that his disdain for government secrecy put lives at risks and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental U.S. and because it\u2019s near Australia, where he will return after he enters his plea.<\/p>\n<p>The guilty plea resolves a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kevin-spacey-asks-judge-to-axe-actors-sex-abuse-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Kevin Spacey Asks Judge to Axe Actor's Sex Abuse Lawsuit\">criminal case brought<\/a> by the Trump administration Justice Department in connection with the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors alleged that he conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces.<\/p>\n<p>But his activities drew an outpouring of support from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-fauci-administration-bidens-top-doc-did-five-times-as-many-interviews-as-president-in-first-year\/\" title=\"The Fauci Administration? Biden\u2019s Top Doc Did Five Times As Many Interviews as President in First Year\">press freedom advocates<\/a>, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.<\/p>\n<p>The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange\u2019s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it.<\/p>\n<p>Weeks after the release of the largest document cache in 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/4d496b0cfcaa49398609c2a136c8c42c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>an arrest warrant for Assange<\/a> based on one woman\u2019s allegation of rape and another\u2019s allegation of molestation. Assange has long maintained his innocence, and the investigation was later dropped.<\/p>\n<p>He presented himself in 2012 to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and spent the following seven years in self-exile there, hosting a parade of celebrity visitors and making periodic appearances from the building\u2019s balcony to address supporters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how Assange would be treated by the American criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, though, the resolution sparing Assange prison time in the U.S. is a repudiation of sorts of years of ominous warnings by Assange and his supporters that the American criminal justice system would expose him to unduly harsh treatment, including potentially the death penalty \u2014 something prosecutors never sought.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands \u2014 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to publishing U.S. military secrets. This plea, part of a deal with Justice Department prosecutors, concludes a lengthy legal battle involving issues of press freedom and national security. Assange entered his plea in a Saipan federal court on Wednesday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2734,"featured_media":2283603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Julian-Assange-pleads-guilty.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[32750,32537,32751,8874],"class_list":["post-2283602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-guilty-plea","tag-julian-assange","tag-us-deal","tag-wikileaks"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Julian-Assange-pleads-guilty.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2283602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2283603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}