espionage
Julian Assange released from prison after agreeing to plea deal with US government
Julian Assange, Embassy Of Ecuador on May 19, 2017, in London, England
From LifeSiteNews
Following a 5-year solitary incarceration, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was released from a London prison after taking a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the publication of classified information online.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison after agreeing to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department.
On Monday, the high-profile journalist was released from prison after agreeing to a deal in which he plead guilty for his involvement in publishing classified information received from a whistleblower working inside the U.S. government.
As CNN reported, Assange will receive a 62-month prison sentence according to the terms of the agreements. The sentence equals the time he spent in the high-security prison Belmarsh near London. The time served will be credited toward his sentence, allowing Assange to leave prison immediately and return to his native Australia.
“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks announced in its statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. “He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a…
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organizers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations. This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized. We will provide more information as soon as possible.”
“After more than five years in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars,” the statement continued, adding that “WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know.”
Assange is expected to officially plead guilty in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, a U.S. territory located in the Pacific Ocean relatively close to Assange’s native Australia.
Assange faced life in prison in the U.S. for 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse related to the publication of millions of classified documents by WikiLeaks.
Assange’s legal battle began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified documents regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including a video that showed a U.S. military helicopter killing several civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad, Iraq. The information was provided by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. From 2012 to 2019, Assange lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London under asylum status. After he was arrested by Metropolitan police in 2019 under an extradition warrant from the U.S. government, Assange was imprisoned at Belmarsh, a high-security prison close to London, where he has been held in solitary confinement up until Monday.
According to sources cited by CNN, officials at the Justice Department and the FBI opposed any deal that did not include a guilty plea to a felony by Assange.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald warned of the danger of Assange pleading guilty to a felony for publishing classified information, which, in the eyes of many, was not a crime but a service to society, namely providing information showing that governments are deceiving their citizens.
“I never believed that the Biden administration actually wanted to bring Julian Assange onto American soil to stand trial,” Greenwald said. “Imagine the spectacle that it would have created as Biden heads into an election.”
It would put on Joe Biden’s record that he would be the first American president in history to preside over the imprisonment, not of a source who leaked information, but of someone who published classified information, which every newspaper in the United States does on a regular basis…
The goal of… keeping him in prison was to crush Julian Assange physically and mentally, and they succeeded in doing that…
They wanted to break Assange and simultaneously send a message to any future Assanges that ‘We will ruin your life if you publish our secrets.’
Drawing parallels to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not being allowed to return to the U.S., Greenwald said, “It is a deterrent message to keep the ability to hide their own crimes through secrecy, immune from the one vulnerability that they have which is that brave people inside the government leak that information to the public or through the media and reveal what it is they are doing.”
espionage
Reporter releases names of 4 Canadian politicians allegedly involved in foreign interference
From LifeSiteNews
Investigative journalist Sam Cooper released a small list of names of those in government he says whistleblowers told him were involved, in some cases wittingly and in other cases unwittingly, in aiding China’s meddling efforts in Canadian politics.
Four politicians along with one government advisor were named as allegedly being involved in a scheme backed by communist China to purposely interfere in Canada’s electoral process.
Investigative journalist Sam Cooper claims that confidential whistleblowers have given him the names of politicians and government workers who wittingly and unwittingly helped China interfere in Canadian politics.
The information came to light Monday during a press conference with Independent Canadian MP Kevin Vuong and Cooper, who were also joined by three foreign interference experts. The group held the press conference to bring to light more details regarding accusations that were made by the House of Commons National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) in the spring of this year.
Thus far, two of those named have denied the allegations, those being Liberal International Trade Minister Mary Ng and Trudeau-appointed Liberal Senator Yuen Pao Woo.
The others named by Cooper include Liberal MP for Steveston—Richmond East, Parm Bains, Guo Ding, who is a journalist as well as an advisor to British Columbia’s recently re-elected Premier David Eby, as well as former Conservative Party senator Victor Oh.
As of press time, none of these individuals have spoken out about the allegations made by Cooper.
In the spring of this year, the NSICOP report implied there were at least 11 unidentified officials who wittingly or unwittingly helped foreign entities, notably China as well as India, in their meddling in the Canadian electoral process.
As for MP Vuong, he has been under investigation for having been targeted by foreign agents and has said that the best solution to “clear the air” is to have all the names in the NSICOP report released.
“Here’s an easy solution to clear the air: Release The Names,” he wrote on X Tuesday in reply to a post from Ng who said it was “unfortunate that Mr. Vuong recently gave Sam Cooper another platform to make insinuations about me, which I categorically reject.”
Vuong shot back at Ng by saying, “is there a reason why you chose to ‘reject’ instead of simply & directly stating that the ‘insinuations’ were categorically false, if they were, indeed, false? Canadians have had enough with word games.”
As for Cooper, he has claimed that no less than three national security sources from Canada’s intelligence agency gave him information that Ng was identified as one of the 11 people named in the NSICOP report. He did note that that intelligence did say Ng was unwittingly implicated in the alleged foreign interference scandal.
The Foreign Interference Commission was convened to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”
The commission is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics. In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, documents from a federal inquiry looking at meddling in Canada’s past two elections by foreign state actors show that agents of the Communist Chinese Party allegedly worked at Elections Canada polling centers during the 2021 campaign.
To date, Trudeau has been coy and has never explicitly stated whether he was ever told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that CCP agents’ actions were in breach of the nation’s Elections Act.
A few months ago, the head of Canada’s intelligence agency testified under oath that he gave Trudeau multiple warnings that agents of the CCP were going after Conservative MPs, yet the prime minister has denied receiving these warnings.
espionage
Release the names! Foreign interference scandal reaching boiling point in shocking press conference
Independent MP, Investigative Reporter, Former CSIS Asia-Pacific Desk Chief shed new light on foreign interference
Press conference is hosted by (Former Liberal) Independent MP Kevin Vuong:
- MP Kevin Vuong;
- Sam Cooper, Investigative Journalist;
- Dr. Carles Burton, Senior Fellow Sinopsis;
- Michel Juneau-Katsua, Former CSIS Asia-Pacific Desk Chief.
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