With an Eye on Justice and Transparency Obama Sets Up Game of Chess for Assange and Trump
Last week Wikileaks editor Julian Assange posted a tweet promising to allow himself to be extradited to the U.S. if President Barack Obama granted Chelsea Manning clemency before leaving office. President Obama Tuesday afternoon commuted Manning’s sentence, slicing 28 years off the 35-year conviction. Manning will be released in May.
President Obama’s action now forces Assange to keep his promise. Assange, via Wikileaks, during the election released thousands of documents, allegedly including the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the chair of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s campaign. U.S. intelligence believes those emails are the product of Russian hacking, directed from the highest levels, which would mean President Vladimir Putin.
Assange now has a choice: submit to the American justice system, with the hope that President Donald Trump will offer him a pardon should he need it, or remain a fugitive inside the embassy of Ecuador in London.
Wikileaks has posted tweets since the news broke that Manning’s sentence was commuted, but no word from Assange on keeping his promise.
Assange would face charges surrounding what is believed to be his publishing of the Wikileaks documents, the same documents Chelsea Manning was convicted of providing to Wikileaks. He would no doubt also be subject to investigation into his role in Wikileaks’ publishing hacked emails believed to have been provided to Wikileaks via Russian hacking.
That investigation might lead to U.S. intelligence agencies learning more about Russian hacking, and just how extensive it was – and just how far Russia went into helping Donald Trump win the White House. Trump conceivably could halt that investigation, but should he try, those actions might also be illegal.Â
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Image by Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina via Flickr and a CC license