Julian Assange hit with 18 federal charges in new indictment

A federal grand jury has indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on 18 felony charges for his alleged involvement in the 2010 leak of classified documents by Chelsea Manning, the Justice Department announced Thursday.


Prosecutors revealed the charges during a conference call with reporters on Thursday. The indictment includes 17 new counts under the Espionage Act, in addition to one charge that was unsealed shortly after Assange was arrested in London in April. Each count carries a maximum sentence of between five and 10 years if convicted.

Julian Assange hit with 18 federal charges in new indictment

The indictment alleges Assange "engaged in real-time discussions regarding Manning's transmission of classified records to Assange" and "actively encouraged" Manning to hack into a military computer network. Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, was convicted of leaking classified information and served seven years in prison before her sentence was commuted by President Obama in 2017. In March, she was sent to jail by a federal judge in Virginia for refusing to appear before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. She was briefly released when the grand jury's term expired, but ordered back to jail when she refused to comply with a new subpoena. It's unclear whether either either grand jury returned Thursday's indictment.

Assange was until recently holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been since 2012. He was arrested in and ordered to serve a 50-week prison term in the U.K. for jumping bail. Federal prosecutors in the U.S. unsealed an indictment of one conspiracy charge soon after, and Assange now faces possible extradition to the U.S. Meanwhile, Swedish prosecutors have said they are reopening a rape case against Assange. They said they will seek his extradition after he has served his sentence in the U.K.

I'm still waiting for the dead man switch to be activated. Will they actually let him go to trial or will he be suicided before hand?

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

My hope is that he has agreed to this so that he can spill the beans in a documented court setting. All the talk in the world will do no good unless the courts are involved.

Further more, i’m hoping that this is one of Trump’s 12 dimensional chess moves. That the republicans have been pushing this court case back until they have the power to process all of this evidence against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Obama, and the Clintons.

The lack of the deadman switch files gives me hope thatassange is complicit with these charges.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Quelle surprise ?

Seems the US want to show they have more claim than Sweden.

Gotta love how publishing information provided by a whistleblower *cough* Seth Rich *cough* will land you in jail.

originally posted by: gortex
Seems the US want to show they have more claim than Sweden.

In a competing extradition the Home Secretary will almost certainly go with the Swedish rape as that's more serious. Assange will have limited options having previously taken the legal process as far as it could go. I agree that Assange needs to address this first and prove his innocence, or not, and that his avoidance of justice in Sweden was an affront.

I read somewhere that when Sweden had finished with Assange i.e. released, or at the end of his sentence, he would be returned to the UK. The US could then have a pop at him. Extradition to the US from the US is not guaranteed.

a reply to: paraphi

The US are claiming he put operative's lives at risk , the Swedish case is spurious so the US claim probably trumps the Swedish case for severity.

originally posted by: gortex
The US are claiming he put operative's lives at risk , the Swedish case is spurious so the US claim probably trumps the Swedish case for severity.

The spuriousness of Sweden's case is what will be tested in Sweden. Firstly, the Swedish extradition has already placed itself first in the queue, and secondly, rape is one of the most serious crimes in England and Wales.

The US extradition case won't be cut and dried, but the Swedish one is.

a reply to: Woodcarver

Spill what beans?

Bad news rest of the world. No matter what country you are from, you are subject to US law.

I hope this doesn't mean we're subject to Australian law. I'd hate to see them extraditing US citizens for violating Australian gun laws.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Woodcarver

Spill what beans?

Chew slowly on this, it's gonna be hard for you to swallow given how convinced you are that Russians colluded with Trump to steal the election from Ol Dodgy......

Hint: Russia did not leak the DNC emails...........

I'm not a fan of applying one country's laws to another country's citizens.

He's as ass, but he should not be extradited to the USA. We've kind of become the Evil Empire (™)...

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

My hope is that he has agreed to this so that he can spill the beans in a documented court setting. All the talk in the world will do no good unless the courts are involved.

If he does not and the man goes through a trial and is imprisoned without any of the alluded to "secrets" Wikileaks has claimed to possess being exposed by him and/or his crew, will the folks who have spent the past decade fawning over him accept the obvious fact that he was a poseur who knew nothing beyond what his website already released upon the world? At some point Assange needs to crap or get off the pot.

I thought this rape case was actually a case of consensual intercourse, where the discrepancy was in the contraceptive used. Is that not the case? They are calling it rape because he didn't use a condom?

a reply to: Sublimecraft

You made my soda come out of my nose I laughed so hard.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I know everyone here was surckin his ***K when he sided with trump and republicans during the elections. Now they're all fkin traitors!



The orange fart Lies through his teeth. He is a part of the establishment.

originally posted by: mekhanics
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I know everyone here was surckin his ***K when he sided with trump and republicans during the elections. Now they're all fkin traitors!

The orange fart Lies through his teeth. He is a part of the establishment.

Your TDS is showing...

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
Bad news rest of the world. No matter what country you are from, you are subject to US law.

I hope this doesn't mean we're subject to Australian law. I'd hate to see them extraditing US citizens for violating Australian gun laws.

You mean just like it has been for a long , long time ?
Where ya been for at least a hunnert years ?

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I guess that's the cost of embarrassing the wrong people?

How dare he pull that curtain back even a smidge

Just to clarify for those still hung up on the "another country's citizen" thing, you're not subject to US law unless you commit a crime against the United States, which is what he's alleged to have done. There is precedent for this going back decades.

ETA: The precedent for this in international law goes back to the 1920s in a case that had nothing to do with the US, so all the whining about "US imperialism" and whatnot is just baseless:

I explained this here back when he was arrested. Of course I was ignored because this goes against the narrative.

a reply to: paraphi

Really you tap nonsense on this subject and do not have an clue what you are talking about.