It took more than a decade, but in the end, it happened very quickly.
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of whistle-blowing platform WikiLeaks, first passed details of U.S. diplomatic cables to the left-leaning British newspaper the Guardian in 2010. He then released unredacted copies of all the documents he had the following year, at the same time he was being investigated by the Department of Justice under the provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917. But it took until March 2018 for a sealed indictment to be issued charging him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
All the while, Assange was fighting other battles. He had been charged with rape by Swedish prosecutors. He was arrested by the Metropolitan Police after arriving in London from Stockholm pursuant to an Interpol red notice. Not only did he deny the charges, but he claimed that they were simply a device to remove him to a jurisdiction from which he could be extradited to the U.S.
From 2012 to 2019, he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. Then he was rearrested by British police and committed to a high-security prison. He was still there until a few days ago.
Then, on June 24, Assange reached an agreement to plead guilty to one felony count under the Espionage Act, be sentenced to 62 months in prison — which he had already served — and then be immediately released.
He was transported to Saipan, in the American territory of the North Mariana Islands, entered his plea, was sentenced in the district court and was then at liberty to go to his native Australia. The legal case is at an end.
Some reactions have been predictable. Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore called it a “happy day” and pledged that “the good people of this world will never forget your sacrifice.” Mexico’s outgoing leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador tweeted that he was “celebrating.”
More surprising was the reaction of MAGA’s leading lady, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who called the developments “amazing news” and mourned that Assange had been “held for years for the crime of committing journalism.” The politically restless Tulsi Gabbard declared that “this should never have happened, but finally, Julian Assange is free.”
In contrast, former Vice President Mike Pence called the plea deal “a miscarriage of justice” that “dishonors the service and sacrifice of the men and women of our armed forces and their families.” He raged:
“Julian Assange endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he said. “There should be no plea deals to avoid prison for anyone that endangers the security of our military or the national security of the United States. Ever.”
With no clear divisions along party lines, what should we make of the end of the Assange saga? The information passed to Assange by Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning exposed wrongdoing by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as details of the much-criticized regime at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Whistle-blowing in the U.S. goes back to Benjamin Franklin, and the law recognizes its legitimacy. No one disputes that the WikiLeaks disclosures were embarrassing to the U.S. government.
On the other hand, it was Assange who decided to release classified information without redaction — publishing the names of Afghan informants and other U.S. intelligence sources, potentially putting lives at risk. The decision was condemned by WikiLeaks’s media partners. The U.S. government has claimed that people have “disappeared” as a result of the information which was leaked.
Intelligence, the lifeblood not only of war but of deterrence, relies on secrecy, and that requires decisions that cannot always be overseen or accountable. That does not give governments a free hand or release them from legal and moral limits. What it does mean is that there are no easy judgments.
Assange released classified information in the full knowledge that doing so could put lives at risk. It is entirely possible that harm has come to some people as a result. The justification was that it revealed wrongdoing and criminality, and that governments must be held to account. All of these things are true — all have some moral force.
James Clapper, director of national intelligence from 2010 to 2017, offered a nuanced view of Assange’s fate, telling CNN, “I actually think this came out pretty well,” Clapper said. “He’s paid his dues. There was a damage assessment done at the time — there was concern but I don’t recall direct proof that assets in Afghanistan and Iraq supporting or helping the U.S. were exposed.”
Certainly Assange has been punished, albeit indirectly. He was guilty of obtaining classified information by illegal means. At the same time, the information found its way into the public domain, and the U.S. government has faced a political reckoning. There is a weird, messy kind of balance in that.
The more significant and difficult issue is the effect on the future of investigative journalism. Will whistleblowers and journalists be more stringent and sensitive to genuine hazards? Or will they be more circumspect, subject to a chilling effect inhibiting free speech? We will need some time to reach a judgment.
Eliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.