Biden faces a renewed push, domestically and internationally, to drop charges against Assange, who is languishing in a UK jail
earlier this month saying that his indictment “sets a dangerous precedent” and threatens to undermine the first amendment.
“This case is hugely significant,” the Columbia University law professor Jameel Jaffer, who runs the Knight First Amendment Institute at the university, said in an interview. “At the end of the day, I find it hard to believe that the Biden administration wants this case to be its press freedom legacy, and itbe its legacy if they continue to pursue it. That will overshadow everything else when it comes to press freedom.
One central dispute in Assange’s rise to notoriety has always been the question of whether he should be considered a journalist covered by the first amendment, as his advocates have long maintained, or a rogue operative who, as the Republican senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska once said, was “an outlet for foreign propaganda and … an enemy of the American people”.
Beyond the massive leaks, Assange was also facing sexual assault charges in Sweden – charges that have since been dropped because Swedish prosecutors said. To avoid capture, he took refuge in 2012 in the Ecuadorian embassy in London under a deal granting him political asylum.
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