In a crucial election year that President Joe Biden is framing as an existential fight for the soul of US democracy, the continued pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was as inconsistent as it was ultimately untenable, says this RMIT academic.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on Jun 26, 2024, after pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information. In the past several months, momentum has been building towards this moment. There was increasing bipartisan support in both theand the US Congress for the Australia n citizen’s release.
The apparent desire to punish Assange for the embarrassment caused by the leaks - and to deter others from taking similar action - was apparently so strong the CIA allegedly discussed plans to kidnap and even assassinate Assange during the Trump administration, according to US media reports. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at a United States District Court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, US, on Jun 26, 2024.
Assange’s case, however, is wholly different to the charges on which Trump has been indicted. It is certainly possible to interpret Biden’s comment that he was “considering” dropping the charges as a gentle public rebuke of the Department of Justice’s pursuit of the case, given its global implications for a free press.The continued pursuit of Assange was also becoming problematic in the context of Australia’s alliance with the US.
It also added to the sense that the “capital-A Alliance” between the two countries was increasingly dominated by security concerns, often at the expense of democratic accountability.
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