| EXEC SUMMARY: Stelter's in NYC, Hadas Gold is in London, and we're teaming up on this special midday edition of the newsletter... | | Julian Assange behind bars
This debate has spanned the decade: Is Julian Assange a villainous hack working in concert with countries that regularly squash a free press? Or is he a symbol of freedom of speech and the public's right to know?
The debate is back on now that Assange has been arrested in the UK and charged in the US -- not under the Espionage Act for publishing classified material, as many press freedom advocates had feared, but under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The feds are alleging that Assange "engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password" on classified DOD computer systems. Notably, according to this timeline, Manning had already started to download info off the servers. Assange allegedly coaxed Manning to keep going.
One of Assange's lawyers, Barry Pollack, says the charges just "boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identify of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges." Others beg to differ. Here's the still-developing story from all sides...
What's next
From CNN's Muhammad Darwish at Westminster Magistrates Court: "The judge found Assange guilty of breaking his bail conditions and ordered him to appear on May 2 for an extradition hearing. Until then, he said Assange would remain in custody." Assange's lawyers say they will fight extradition.
--> Check out CNN's Live Story about Assange for the very latest all day...
Floyd Abrams' view
I asked eminent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams for his reaction to the news.
"First," he said, "a sigh of relief that the indictment seems narrow in scope and was not rooted in an Espionage Act claim simply based on receiving and publishing classified data. Second, it is based on Assange's alleged activities in personally participating in accessing the classified information and cracking a classified password. Assange is thus accused of not just receiving classified information and disseminating it but in essence of breaking into the secured computers of the government. That is fortunately not commonplace journalistic conduct."
"Third," he said, "notwithstanding the unique features of the case, much of it is based on not uncommon journalistic conduct — receiving and publishing classified material. To that extent, the case still has some level of broader risk for journalists. On balance, though, it seems to me that the government has used significant restraint in making only this single rather unique charge against Assange and the ultimate impact on the press may thus be limited."
Reactions from press freedom groups
The Committee to Protect Journalists came out with a short statement saying it "is aware of the arrest of Julian Assange and is examining the U.S. charges for press freedom implications."
Others were more forceful in the immediate aftermath of the arrest. "While we investigate the implications" of the charges, Reporters Without Borders said, "we reiterate our concern that the persecution of those who provide or publish information of public interest comes at the expense of the investigative journalism that allows a democracy to thrive."
The UK's National Union of Journalists said it is "shocked and concerned by the actions of the authorities today... The NUJ recognises the inherent link between and importance of leaked confidential documents and journalism reporting in the public interest. It should be remembered that in April 2010 WikiLeaks released Collateral Murder, a video showing a 2007 US Apache helicopter attack upon individuals in Baghdad, more than 23 people were killed including two Reuters journalists. The manner in which Assange is treated will be of great significance to the practice of journalism."
This is a still frame from the 2007 video: | |
Top Twitter reactions, part one
-- Peter Sterne, who formerly ran the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: "The CFAA charge is clearly a pretext, a way of punishing Assange for publishing classified documents without actually charging him for it. But the fact that DOJ went out of its way to avoid charging him for publishing means this doesn't set a dangerous precedent..."
-- Sen. Lindsey Graham: "I'm glad to see the wheels of justice are finally turning when it comes to Julian Assange. In my book, he has NEVER been a hero. His actions -- releasing classified information -- put our troops at risk and jeopardized the lives of those who helped us in Iraq and Afghanistan."
-- MSNBC's Ari Melber: "The U.S. government indictment of Julian Assange is an aggressive and potentially chilling legal document for journalists in the U.S. and abroad."
Snowden says the US case is shockingly weak
Assange ally Edward Snowden tweeted: "The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism. Here's his Twitter feed...
DOJ officials "expect to bring additional charges"
CNN's Evan Perez reports: "Justice Department officials expect to bring additional charges against Assange, a US official briefed on the matter said. It is unclear when such charges would be brought."
Re: the assertion from Snowden (and others) that the Obama admin refused to charge Assange: "The Justice Department had struggled for years with the question of whether Assange and WikiLeaks should be treated as journalists and publishers," Perez wrote. "News organizations similarly published stolen classified documents; some even worked with WikiLeaks to get access to documents and publish stories. The view among prosecutors began changing late in the Obama administration, in part due to new evidence the FBI believed showed Assange was not entitled to journalistic protections." And then WikiLeaks' publication of stolen CIA hacking codes in 2017 "helped propel the case against Assange, according to current and former US law enforcement officials..."
"New evidence..."
Perez's sources referenced new evidence. What kind? Here's more from Perez: "The years-long FBI investigation into Assange transformed in recent years with the recovery of communications that prosecutors believe show Assange had been been a more active participant in a conspiracy to hack computers and violating US law, law enforcement officials say."
Charges elsewhere, too?
Obama W.H. aide turned CNN analyst Samantha Vinograd wonders if Assange could be charged for crimes in other countries, as well. Vinograd emails: WikiLeaks "served as a Russian information laundromat during the 2016 campaign -- we don't know if Assange will be charged with conspiring with the GRU to release DNC emails, for example -- and Wikileaks doesn't just target the US..."
| | What The Intercept is saying
The Intercept website has been a home for detailed and sometimes supportive coverage of WikiLeaks and Assange over the years. Right now there's a "WAR ON WIKILEAKS" section on its home page. Here is the site's main story about the arrest, written by Robert Mackey...
--> Glenn Greenwald has been active on Twitter for the last six hours. Here's a representative post: "The DOJ says part of what Assange did to justify his prosecution - beyond allegedly helping Manning get the documents -- is he encouraged Manning to get more docs for him to publish. Journalists do this with sources constantly: it's the criminalization of journalism."
--> Greenwald also highlighted this statement from the ACLU's Ben Wizner: "Prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
By Pavni Mittal:
-- From allegations of rape and molestation in Sweden in 2010 to his arrest today, Mattha Busby has a timeline of Assange's legal entanglements... (Guardian)
-- Here is Luke McGee's backgrounder on Assange's rise to fame and years in limbo... (CNN)
-- Recommended reading: "A Man Without a Country," this exhaustive profile of Assange from 2017... (New Yorker)
-- On "Fox & Friends," Judge Andrew Napolitano said, "I have to tell you, in my opinion Julian Assange is a hero. What he published was truthful information that the American public and the world had the right to see..." (Fox)
Trump today: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks"
"Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks," then-candidate Donald Trump said a few days before the 2016 election. He called the website "amazing," a "treasure trove," etcetera during the campaign. As Joshua Green tweeted, it's "hard to overstate the Trump campaign's enthusiasm for Julian Assange."
But on Thursday, when asked by a reporter if he still loves WikiLeaks, Trump said, "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing."
| | How the news broke
Hadas writes: I was in a regular planning meeting in the London bureau when I heard literal running outside of our conference room – and that's how I knew something big had happened.
WikiLeaks had been warning for days that Assange's arrest and expulsion were imminent, even holding a press conference the day before. And the arrest seemed to have been coordinated among officials – within minutes of each other the police, Ecuadorian officials and others all had statements out.
Assange had been living for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy. But the embassy isn't the palatial place with nice grounds you might imagine. It's just some offices -- part of a larger building in one of the poshest areas of London, just behind the famous Harrods department store. The only way you can tell there's an embassy in the building is an Ecuadorian flag and placard off the balcony where Assange sometimes spoke.
How a Russia-owned outlet got the arresting video
Hadas writes: In an incredible movie-like twist, the ONLY video of Assange's arrest came from a Russian-owned media outlet. Ruptly is a video service owned by RT, the international television network owned by the Russian government that in 2017 had to register as a foreign agent in the United States.
Founded in 2013, Ruptly's operation is headquartered in Berlin. The footage of Assange may be its biggest moment yet. Laura Lucchini, deputy head of news at Ruptly, said the outlet has been shooting video outside the embassy 24/7 since at least April 5. It's even been broadcasting a shot of the building's front door on YouTube. "We saw camera crews come and go. But we stayed. We believe that these images hold great news value," Lucchini told me in a statement.
According to the Guardian, big UK broadcasters had formed a "pool" arrangement to take turns staking out the building. If something happened, the footage would be shared among the pool members. That effort appeared to have been abandoned when the arrest failed to materialize. BBC, ITN and Sky did not immediately respond to requests for comment. ..
>> The context: Russia has long expressed support for Assange. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Facebook post after Assange's arrest that "the hand of 'democracy' squeezes the throat of freedom."
>> Lucchini said in an email that she does not feel influenced by the Russian government, saying "I wouldn't have accepted this position if I wouldn't have felt free in my decisions." The outlet's scoop is paying off as they charge outlets around the world to use their exclusive footage...
What Assange is reading
While he was being carried out of the embassy, Assange yelled something to the effect of "UK resist … UK, resist this attempt by the Trump administration." He was holding a copy of Gore Vidal's book "History of The National Security State," perhaps hoping it would be seen on camera. He was reportedly reading it while in the courtroom later in the day...
Why now?
His dramatic expulsion from the embassy followed "a year of ratcheting tension between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts, culminating in Wikileaks publicizing a leak of hundreds of thousands of hacked emails mysteriously stolen from the inboxes of Ecuador's president and first lady. It was this last move that finally set Ecuador's government firmly against Assange," The Daily Beast's Kevin Poulsen wrote. (Pouslen has been all over this case for years.)
>> Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno said his country withdrew Assange's asylum due to his "discourteous and aggressive behaviour," "the hostile and threatening declarations of his allied organisation against Ecuador" and "the transgression of international treaties." CNN's team has more...
What Assange told me 9 years ago
Nine years ago this week, I interviewed Assange after WikiLeaks published the aforementioned helicopter gunship footage from Iraq. Noam Cohen and I wrote a story for the NYT about WikiLeaks' disruptive power. In the phone interview, Assange likened the work of spy agencies to "high-tech investigative journalism." He said "it's time that the media upgraded its capabilities along those lines." Those words stood out to me when I re-read the story today...
How WikiLeaks has changed
Micah Sifry wrote the book "WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency" way back in 2011. The evolution of his POV about WikiLeaks and Assange reflects the evolution of many American tech experts and media junkies.
"I used to be in the 'anti-anti-WikiLeaks' camp," he told me, "back when the U.S. government brought extraordinary pressure on businesses like Visa and Mastercard to stop processing donations to the platform after it published the newsworthy and responsibly redacted cache of State Department cables. But I lost all faith in him when he gave away access to the full, unredacted archive in September 2011, and condemned him publicly as WikiLeaks' single point of failure in 2012 when he refused to separate himself from WikiLeaks to face sexual assault charges in Sweden. WikiLeaks ceased being a serious transparency project long before Assange threw himself into helping tilt the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton."
By then -- when figures like Trump were promoting WikiLeaks -- the conventional view in media circles was that WikiLeaks was in Russia's pocket. Remember what Jim Sciutto and co. reported in October 2016: "There is mounting evidence that the Russian government is supplying WikiLeaks with hacked emails pertaining to the US presidential election." In 2017, Trump's then-CIA director Mike Pompeo called the website a "nonstate hostile intelligence service."
In some ways it's a disappointment to people -- journalists and others -- who had high hopes for the site a decade ago. Sifry is in that camp.
He added, however, "I worry that Assange will not be able to present a full defense should he be successfully extradited to the United States, as there may be cases where serious journalists should publish classified documents however they are obtained."
Top Twitter reactions, part two
-- Sen. Ben Sasse: "This arrest is good news for freedom-loving people. Julian Assange has long been a wicked tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence services. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison."
-- Historian and CNN analyst Julian Zelizer tweeted: WikiLeaks "is one of the few issues that doesn't fall neatly into the left/right divide. But Trump's incessant attacks on the free press will make it difficult for Assange's critics to make their case..."
-- The headline on Tim O'Brien's Bloomberg column: "If Assange Burgled Some Computers, He Stopped Being a Journalist." | |
IN OTHER NEWS...
Avenatti indicted on 36 counts
"Hold on, currently writing a one act play set in a federal prison with Assange and Avenatti as cellmates," MSNBC's Chris Hayes tweeted, referencing the breaking news about this new indictment of Michael Avenatti... Here is CNN's full story...
Enquirer watch
Who's going to buy the National Enquirer? And at what price? The NYT, following up on WaPo's scoop about the impending sale, says the tabloid "is likely to be sold in a matter of days."
Edmund Lee and Andrew Ross Sorkin just reported that American Media is in talks to sell the tabloid to Ron Burkle, "a Democratic donor with close ties to President Bill Clinton..." They rightly say the sale "could raise eyebrows in Washington given President Trump's fondness for the tabloid."
The story comes with the usual caveats that "the deal could still fall apart." Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Burkle's investment firm Yucaipa Companies just told CNN's Cristina Alesci that the firm denies being interested in buying the Enquirer...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- James Hohmann's smart take on the day's top stories: "Assange's arrest in London, Greg Craig's looming indictment in DC, Maryanne Trump Barry's retirement as a federal judge in NY and the pending sale of the National Enquirer should all be viewed as aftershocks of the 2016 election..." (WaPo)
-- CNN is holding FIVE 2020 town halls on a single evening! Sunday, April 22 is the day... (CNN)
-- The WSJ's Louise Story explains how the website is "refocusing the comments to incentivize better behavior..." (NiemanLab)
-- As I mentioned in last night's newsletter, THR has a behind the scenes look at Showtime's forthcoming Fox News drama... Here it is... (THR)
THR's list is out | | Oliver Darcy emails: The Hollywood Reporter is out with its 2019 list of the most powerful figures in New York media. Some notable first-timers on this year's list:Michael Barbaro, Lisa Tobin, and Sam Dolnick of "The Daily" podcast... HuffPost editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen... Daily Beast editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman... and CNN's own Brian Stelter. Congrats all...
>> Stelter adds: Thanks Oliver... Thanks THR... Okay, now back to work!
COMING UP...
Nipsey Hussle's "Celebration of Life" in L.A. today
The Staples Center will be packed for Nipsey Hussle's memorial Thursday, and throngs are also expected to line the streets to bid him farewell, Lisa Respers France reports.
"A Celebration of Life" just began at 1 p.m. ET. Who's streaming it? ET, BET, Tidal, and CNN. Here is our Live Story with all the coverage...
Disney+ day
Frank Pallotta emails from L.A.: Disney's big investor event will begin at 2pm local time, 5pm ET... Here is Brian Lowry's curtain-raiser...
"Hitler would have loved social media"
Katie Pellico emails: Disney CEO Bob Iger issued an indictment of social media while accepting the Humanitarian Award at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Tribute Dinner on Wednesday night, according to Variety. "It creates a false sense that everyone shares the same opinion," he said. It "allows evil to prey on troubled minds and lost souls and we all know that social news feeds can contain more fiction than fact, propagating vile ideology that has no place in a civil society that values human life."
Geoffrey Rush wins #MeToo defamation case
CNN's Angus Watson and Matthew Robinson report: Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush has won more than $600,000 and could receive millions more, after successfully arguing that an Australian tabloid newspaper defamed him with a #MeToo story.
Justice Michael Wigney ruled in a federal court in Sydney on Thursday that Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper had been "extravagant and reckless" in reporting that Rush abused a co-star during a 2015 stage production of "King Lear." Read the full story here...
Oprah praises new class of congresswomen 'forged by fire'
| | Chloe Melas reports: Oprah Winfrey took the stage as the keynote speaker at Wednesday night's Women in the World Summit at NYC's Lincoln Center and praised the 42 women newly elected to Congress. Read on...
| | | Thank you for reading. Email me anytime! We'll be back later today at our normal time... | | | |
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