Ten Democratic Senators Send Despicable Letter to Mike Pence Targeting Journalist Julian Assange for “Undermining Democratic Processes Globally”

Originally published Jun 29, 2018

On June 27th, ten U.S. senators sent a letter to Mike Pence in advance of his planned visit to Ecuador.

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/6-27-18%20RM%20letter%20to%...

In it, they praise “President Moreno’s intent to reform Ecuador’s Law of Communication and his statements in support of freedom of expression protected [sic].” But the meat of the matter is in this passage:

Despite these advances, we remain extremely concerned about Ecuador providing asylum to WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange since June 2012. As you are aware, in its declassified January 2017 report, the U.S. Intelligence Community assessed that Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) used WikiLeaks to release hacked information in order to influence from [sic] the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We are also deeply troubled by WikiLeaks interventions in the 2017 French presidential election and the 2017 Spanish referendum on Catalan independence.

During his tenure as Director of Central Intelligence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo characterized WikiLeaks as, “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” For these reasons, we were alarmed that the readout of your June 4, 2018 phone call with President Moreno made no mention of efforts by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks to interfere in the 2016 U.S. electoral process or the elections of some of our closest allies.

As the United States is still seeking clarity about the full extent of Russian interventions in our elections and Russian interference in elections across the world, it is imperative that you raise U.S. concerns with President Moreno about Ecuador’s continuing support for Mr. Assange at a time when WikiLeaks continues its efforts to undermine democratic processes globally.

The signatories were Senators Menendez, Durbin, Blumenthal, Markey, Bennet, Coons, Manchin, Shaheen, Feinstein, and Warner.

It is evident that the underlying agenda here is to see to that Assange loses his asylum so that Britain can extradite Assange to the U.S. for trial on espionage charges; the U.S. must have a sealed indictment targeting Assange, as has been repeatedly speculated.

These senators seem to be unaware that Assange is a publisher, not an espionage agent. WikiLeaks’ agenda is to publish authentic leaked documents that reveal corruption and crime in the conduct of the world’s major governments and political parties. WikiLeaks does not hack, nor does it commission hackers. With regard to Russia, Wikileaks has published documents that reveal Russia’s intensive efforts to spy on its own citizens, and cables of U.S. diplomats castigating the questionable conduct of many Russian oligarchs. In no way can Assange be accurately characterized as an espionage agent acting on behalf of Russia or any other country. WikiLeaks’ conduct with respect to the DNC and Podesta emails might be analogized to the Washington Post’s publication of the Pentagon Papers, or of the Intercept’s more recent publication of an NSA internal document leaked by Reality Winner. We note that neither the Washington Post nor the Intercept have been targeted for prosecution for performing their mission as journalists.

The letter makes reference to the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, attributing its authorship to “the U.S. Intelligence Community”. As is well known, this “Assessment” is not a proper National Intelligence Assessment involving contributions from the full range of our intelligence agencies — including dissenting opinions — but rather a jerry-rigged tribunal hand-picked by John Brennan and James Clapper, well known for their virtually psychotic Russophobia. And, as CIA veteran Ray McGovern has pointed out, “assess” is spyspeak for “guess”. Indeed, the ICA itself includes a disclaimer stating that “assessments” should not necessarily be confused with “facts”. The unclassified version of the ICA provides no evidence whatever justifying its “assessments”, as even the New York Times acknowledged. And the senators fail to note that President Obama stated, shortly before leaving office, that our intelligence officials have no clue as to how the alleged Russian hackers of the DNC and Podesta might have conveyed their booty to Wikileaks. Nor do they acknowledge that Assange himself has stated categorically that this material was not acquired via the Russian government or any other state actor. Moreover, Assange’s close colleague, former British ambassador Craig Murray, is adamant that these emails were provided by leakers, not hackers.

As regards alleged Russian government “interference” in our 2016 election, there is no compelling public evidence whatever regarding such interference. The fact that a fantasy is repeated unceasingly on all major MSM outlets for, by this time, nearly two years, does not make it a true. A number of astute and qualified analysts, cited in the following essays, have ripped to shreds the alleged evidence for this claim:

The Russiagate Hoax, the Dirty Dossier, DNC Corruption, and DOJ Obstruction for Hillary — A Compendium of Sources
https://caucus99percent.com/content/russiagate-hoax-dirty-dossier-dnc-co...

Every Aspect of Russiagate is an Outright HOAX, Crafted by Paid Associates of the DNC, and Abetted by Deep State Russophobes and Their Whores in the Mainstream Media — Read Joe Lauria!
https://caucus99percent.com/content/every-aspect-russiagate-outright-hoa...

HILARITY ALERT: Moon of Alabama Explains What the Indicted Russian Trolls Were Really Doing
https://caucus99percent.com/content/hilarity-alert-moon-alabama-explains...

Hey Republicans — About that “Russian Meddling” Thing…
https://caucus99percent.com/content/hey-republicans%E2%80%8A%E2%80%94%E2...

What’s Left of Russiagate — Are We Down to the 1,000 Paid Trolls?
https://caucus99percent.com/content/what%E2%80%99s-left-russiagate%E2%80...

The shallow partisans and the careerist journalists who are ceaselessly pushing this line have betrayed our nation and the world, and have pushed us toward a wholly unnecessary, highly dangerous, and potentially catastrophically expensive new Cold War with Russia.

Of course, whether or not Assange obtained their DNC/Podesta emails from Russian government-commissioned sources should not be considered germane. WikiLeaks is a renowned publisher, and there is no evidence we are aware of that it assisted or commissioned hacking of either the DNC or Podesta. If the U.S. is upset by those releases, its proper response should be, not to intimidate or imprison Assange, but rather to employ its own hackers to supply WikiLeaks with compromising accurate material on Russia or Russian officials.

What I would like to know is, since when did supplying voters with facts regarding the ways that governments and political parties have conducted themselves become equivalent to “undermining democratic processes globally” or “interfering in elections”. I “assess” that any “democratic process” that is “undermined” by the revelation of true pertinent facts, deserves to be undermined.

The signatories to this letter have disgraced themselves utterly. They are attempting to use thuggish U.S. power to stifle journalistic free speech, in an effort to prevent the future revelation of facts that may contradict the lies and fantasies that our Deep State employs to maintain its power and world dominance. And the fact that they open their letter by commending President Moreno for his statements “in support of freedom of expression” is simply deliciously ironic.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

Too little too late, Assange's "asylum" has already been (ILLEGALLY) rescinded and he's in a British gulag. Get a clue, morons.

Thanks for letting us peons know you're eagerly kissing the ass of Big Brother - not that we can do much about it, even come Election Day.

Most of you never had a soul to sell - but one of you did, and he has sold out spectacularly and shamefully. That was the price of stepping up from the House to the Senate, wasn't it, Ed Markey?

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.