More lies from the Guardian on Assange

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 1:50pm

Twitler is reporting that Trump offered Assange a pardon if he would deny that Russia was involved in the DNC hack.

Donald Trump 'offered Julian Assange a pardon if he denied Russia link to hack'

Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he would say Russia was not involved in leaking Democratic party emails, a court in London has been told.

The extraordinary claim was made at Westminster magistrates court before the opening next week of Assange’s legal battle to block attempts to extradite him to the US.

Assange’s barrister, Edward Fitzgerald QC, referred to evidence alleging that the former US Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher had been to see Assange, now 48, while he was still in the Ecuadorian embassy in August 2017.

A statement from Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson shows “Mr Rohrabacher going to see Mr Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks”, Fitzgerald told Westminster magistrates court.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who is hearing the case at Westminster, said the evidence is admissible.

White House spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, told reporters: “The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he’s an ex-congressman. He’s never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject.”

“It is a complete fabrication and a total lie,” Grisham said. “This is probably another never ending hoax and total lie from the DNC.”

In September 2017, the White House confirmed that Rohrabacher had called the then chief of staff, John Kelly, to talk about a possible deal with Assange.

Rohrabacher told the Wall Street Journal that as part of the deal he was proposing, Assange would have to hand over a computer drive or other data storage device that would prove that Russia was not the source of the hacked emails.

“He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,” Rohrabacher said.

The report quoted an unnamed administration official as saying that Kelly had told Rohrabacher that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community”. The same official said Kelly did not convey Rohrabacher’s message to Trump, who was unaware of the details of the proposed deal.

The publication of emails hacked from the Hillary Clinton campaign helped perpetuate an aura of scandal around the Democratic candidate a few weeks before the 2016 election.

WikiLeaks put them online hours after Trump had suffered an apparent public relations disaster with the emergence of a tape in which he boasted of molesting women.

(ahem... Wikileaks had told the world weeks before that they would be releasing the files)

I would like to know exactly what Edward Fitzgerald is saying here and why he brought this up in court. Assange has already stated that he did not get the leaked DNC emails from Russia, but from someone close to Hillary's campaign. Craig Murray stated that he was involved in the transfer of the files and there were hints that people from the IC was involved in leaking the information.

It is true that Dana Rohrabacher (R) did visit Assange in 2017, but the idea of a pardon has never been brought up until today. This is just more kabuki BS trying to bring the dead Russia Gate crap back from the dumpster where its ashes have lain since Muellers's epic flame out.

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Submitted by Shahryar on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 2:33pm
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I think the whole thing is a lie. Your logic seems perfect.

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Submitted by Bob In Portland on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 2:42pm
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A lie.

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Submitted by MrWebster on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 3:16pm

Rohrabacher according to article visited Assange in August of 2017. Trump wanted Assange to say what he had claimed in Nov. of 2016?

WikiLeaks' Assange denies Russia behind Podesta hack

Assange may have even denied Russian hacking before the Nov. election of 2016--I just didn't search very long.

Why this lie at this moment. Is a psyop being prep'ed?

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Submitted by lizzyh7 on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 3:29pm

@MrWebster this makes him look "guilty" by not accepting said pardon, although we know that pardon is a lie, but why stop lying now? His extradition hearing is coming up so this might help muddy the waters there, if he's really NOT a Russian spy who set out to put Trump in office by destroying Her's candidacy then why would he not take that pardon? So he MUST be guilty of colluding with Russia but since he dare not admit that, he refuses said pardon.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:14pm
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@MrWebster

The idiots who believe this are ignoring the fact that Trump got Ecuador to rescind Assange's citizenship and allowed the U.K. to drag him out of the embassy. And that he was thrown into prison and treated most heinously and possibly given drugs....

That any journalist would peddle this government talking point when they bitch about how Trump treats them is beyond words. Hopefully they signed a deal saying that if they did this then Trump won't come after them if they stray from their given propaganda. Because if they can do this to Assange then they can do it to everyone else.

The good news is that more people with power are speaking out about what is happening to him.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by aliasalias on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:11pm

True to their form as propagandists. The Indictment of Julian Assange has nothing to do with the 2016 election, , nothing...it is entirely based upon charges from 2010. So there was no trade offer possible for talking about 'Russian collusion' in the 2016 election in order to get his charges dropped for Assange.

Here we go again: Media report ‘Trump asked Assange to deny/cover up link with Russia'
quoting statement showing no such thing

"Though both publications faithfully reproduced Fitzgerald’s quote, they both jumped to the exact same conclusion, presenting Robinson’s statement as proof that Trump sought to “deny” or “cover up” what they treat as the established fact – i.e. the ‘Russian hack’ of the DNC, and the subsequent publication of internal party emails.

Never mind that the ‘Russian hack’ has only been alleged by Mueller’s prosecutors and the US intelligence community – the same one that spied on Trump during and after the 2016 election – the main story around which this malicious misinterpretation resolves isn’t even true.

While Rohrabacher did visit Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, he said it was Assange who showed him “definitive proof that Russia was not the source” for the DNC emails, according to a February 2018 report in the Intercept. "

"The timeline of events also goes against the Guardian and Beast’s interpretation. Months after the meeting with Rohrabacher – in November 2018 – a secret US indictment against Assange was revealed.

Mueller delivered his report, finding no evidence of any Americans “colluding” with Russia in the 2016 election, on March 22, 2019. Less than three weeks later, on April 11, Assange’s asylum was revoked and he was hauled out of the embassy in handcuffs. The WikiLeaks publisher was thrown into a dungeon in Belmarsh, where he has been ever since. In May, the US government revealed the expanded indictment, threatening him with 175 years behind bars for “attempted hacking” – but in relation to the 2010 Pentagon disclosures, not the 2016 election.
(all highlights mine)
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/481238-assange-trump-rohrabacher-russia-dnc/

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Submitted by lizzyh7 on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:21pm

@aliasalias In America? You mean people are supposed to do that? Obvious snark, couldn't help myself.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:40pm
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Julian Assange: Russian government not the source of leaked emails

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues to deny that Russian government was the source of the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

In an interview airing Tuesday at 10 p.m. on the The Sean Hannity Show, Assange reiterated that the source of the leaked emails was not Russian government.

"We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party," Assange told Sean Hannity.

Obama sanctions Russian officials over election hacking

While President Obama, the FBI and CIA claim to have evidence that Russia hacked Democratic Party officials during the presidential election, Assange alleges that the officials are letting politics get in the way of truth.

The Russian hacking saga: How we got here

"Our publications had wide uptake by the American people, they’re all true,” Assange told Hannity. “But that’s not the allegation that’s being presented by the Obama White House. So, why such a dramatic response? Well, the reason is obvious. They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House. They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president."

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Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:46pm
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Ex-British ambassador who is now a WikiLeaks operative claims Russia did NOT provide Clinton emails - they were handed over to him at a D.C. park by an intermediary for 'disgusted' Democratic whistleblowers

Overwhelming evidence is out there.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 4:55pm
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@Pluto's Republic

But people just won't look at it or for it because they made up their minds the moment Hillary opened her mouth on it. If they stopped for one minute and looked at how there has been no evidence...but they won't do it.

Here's Lee Camp

Our corrupt media can't possibly report the truth. So many of them have added that Assange was asked to "cover up" or "lie" that Russia wasn't involved.
And on top of that - How DARE the MSM continue to not demand Assange's immediate release! Every last one of them disgusts me.

But as alias writes above Assange wasn't charged for anything to do with the election. But they just skip over that fact too.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 5:25pm
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.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 5:37pm
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are almost the definition of tautological satire, in that they use as evidence a link by the same authors yesterday. plus as we all know, the leak wasn't a 'hack' as the VIPS have proven over and over.

the daily smear offered a correction in the nearly excellent RT piece, also has a leak quoting its own earlier daily assange smear.but again:

"LONDON—A lawyer for Julian Assange has claimed in court that President Donald Trump offered to pardon Assange if the WikiLeaks founder agreed to help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Assange’s lawyers said on Wednesday that former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after emails that damaged Hillary Clinton in the presidential race had been published. WikiLeaks posted the stolen DNC emails after they were hacked by Russian operatives.

The claim that Rohrabacher acted as an emissary for the White House came during a pre-extradition hearing in London." [no date claimed]

Fitzgerald said a statement produced by Assange’s personal lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, included a description of “Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.” [evidence free claim via Fitzgerad]

now edward fitzgerald QC doesn't seem to be on twitter, but from jen robinson's twit account, these reTweets FWIW:

...with this 2107 link to the washington times.

you may also remember how many times the daily smear had hit julian earlier, one by 'Xeni Jardin' i remember pretty damned well...

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Submitted by aliasalias on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 5:48pm

@wendy davis

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:36pm
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@aliasalias

that reminder, as i constantly live in a time warp now, so even noting the dates, then remembering them is very difficult.

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Submitted by Marie on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 5:43pm

Seeing Through the Lies -- US Edition

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:39pm
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@Marie

The Guardian has, in a feat of some skill, contrived to give its readers the impression that Stone has been convicted for Trump/Wikileaks links, when that is in fact the precise opposite of the truth.

Stone has been convicted for fabricating the existence of Trump/Wikileaks links, of which there were none.

The Guardian has hung its entire corporate personality on Clinton identity politics and its entire financial survival on building a new online customer base among the Clinton electorate in the USA. When even the New York Times had to admit the Mueller report utterly failed to substantiate Clinton’s inane claims that the Russians had caused Clinton’s election defeat, even when a judge dismissed the DNC’s lawsuit against said Russians as being supported by no viable evidence whatsoever, even when the entire world derided the Guardian’s massive front page lie about Paul Manafort visiting Assange in the Embassy, the Guardian has persisted in reporting as fact the preposterous conspiracy theory that its heroine was thwarted from attaining supreme power by the evil machinations of Vladimir Putin.

To maintain this stance in the face of all factual evidence requires great skill and dexterity from Guardian journalists. Fortunately for the Guardian it does not lack for fantasist Russophobe fabricators like Luke Harding or for more subtly corrupt spinners like David Smith, who last week wrote of Stone that “He was the sixth former Trump aide to be convicted in cases arising from the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.”

Funny isn't it how no one in the main stream media has reported on Mueller being told to quit saying that the IRA group that placed ads on Facebook were tied to the Russian government. He just blurted out lots of crap in his report without providing any evidence that it was true. As did Brennan, Clapper and Coated the 3 dudes that wrote the intelligence briefing that only said they think Russia did the deed and that they had high confidence that they were involved in the DNC computer leak.

No wonder most journalists aren't freaking out about what's happening to Assange. They don't do journalism anymore, but just repeat what they are told.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:31pm
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and of course they believe Trump did offer a pardon. The things that the members of the 'most progressive' blog ever say about him are repugnant.

Funny how no one there remembers that Mueller never tied Wikileaks to Russia nor did he try by you know talking to Assange. Nor have they noticed that he hasn't been charged for anything to do with the election.

ETA

Assange, Greenwald and 'other darlings of the left' were just sleeper agents aligned with Russia.
Good lord that anyone could think that let alone write it for others to see.

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Submitted by laurel on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:39pm

just ask the publishers of OffGuardian which was "launched in February 2015 and takes its name from the fact its founders had all been censored on and/or banned from the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ sections." Sound familiar?

Cute how the Guardian opens the story with a paragraph consisting of a startling claim which they later admit is false. Rohrabacher, the supposed source, disowned the lie ages ago and clarified that he had promised to request a pardon for Assange if Assange would disclose the name of his source. Assange, being a noble man, refused.

However, it's not surprising that Chelsea Clinton's Daily Beast has involved itself with the Russiagate aspect of this fluffy, content-free tale because Russiagate is Chelsea's mother's little invention which, should she attempt to run for president again, might still make a workable smear to use against Trump.

Dirty media is going to pollute the electronic airwaves from here to November. Time to put on our waders.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:52pm
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From Murray.

To consider those DNC leaks published by Wikileaks in which Roger Stone claimed falsely to have a part. What the leaks did reveal was the foul play and machinations of the DNC machinery in cheating Bernie Sanders out of the nomination – including jiggling the ordering of primaries specifically to give Hillary “momentum”, and giving Hillary debate questions in advance. Nobody should be surprised to see the same tactics being deployed against Bernie Sanders – whom I should be clear I support strongly – yet again.

The “muddle” that led to CIA-linked Pete Buttigieg being able to claim victory in Iowa, for a crucial five days before the official tallies showed Bernie had in fact won was, I strongly suspect, merely a portent of what is to come. The fact the app that “misfired” was designed by four ex-Clinton staffers working for a company chaired by a Buttigieg team member is indicative of what we can expect over the next few months. The right have yet to decide on their champion to thwart Bernie. Buttigieg and Klobuchar are enjoying moments in the sun of media approval, and the DNC have now changed the rules to allow Bloomberg into future debates. That the Clintonites who have been deriding Sanders as not a Democrat, will actually switch to support Republican billionaire Bloomberg against Sanders, is something I expect to see play out over the next month as it becomes clear that neither Buttigieg nor Klobuchar can stop Bernie.

Are we being subjected to this new propaganda crap just as the DNC is once again rigging the primary against Bernie? Whoever is behind this is trying to get out in front of the Berners once they see it happening again and wants to tie it to Assange's extradition somehow. Gawd I hate being this cynical.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 02/19/2020 - 6:52pm
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some time ago, but i was unable to find it. i finally did on craig's twitter account:

'The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich', 28 Jan. 2020

"A persistent American lawyer has uncovered the undeniable fact that the FBI has been continuously lying, including giving false testimony in court, in response to Freedom of Information requests for its records on Seth Rich. The FBI has previously given affidavits that it has no records regarding Seth Rich.

A Freedom of Information request to the FBI which did not mention Seth Rich, but asked for all email correspondence between FBI Head of Counterterrorism Peter Strzok, who headed the investigation into the DNC leaks and Wikileaks, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, has revealed two pages of emails which do not merely mention Seth Rich but have “Seth Rich” as their heading. The emails were provided in, to say the least, heavily redacted form.

Before I analyse these particular emails, I should make plain that they are not the major point. The major point is that the FBI claimed it had no records mentioning Seth Rich, and these have come to light in response to a different FOIA request that was not about him. What other falsely denied documents does the FBI hold about Rich, that were not fortuitously picked up by a search for correspondence between two named individuals?

To look at the documents themselves, they have to be read from the bottom up, and they consist of a series of emails between members of the Washington Field Office of the FBI (WF in the telegrams) into which Strzok was copied in, and which he ultimately forwarded on to the lawyer Lisa Page.

The opening email, at the bottom, dated 10 August 2016 at 10.32am, precisely just one month after the murder of Seth Rich, is from the media handling department of the Washington Field Office. It references Wikileaks’ offer of a reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, and that Assange seemed to imply Rich was the source of the DNC leaks. The media handlers are asking the operations side of the FBI field office for any information on the case. The unredacted part of the reply fits with the official narrative. The redacted individual officer is “not aware of any specific involvement” by the FBI in the Seth Rich case. But his next sentence is completely redacted. Why?"

it's quite long, but the hyperlink to 'very persistent lawyer...showing the fbi is lying goes to lawflog.com, ty clevenger, jan. 28, 2020, who also notes:

'Rather than re-invent the wheel, I’ve copied and pasted my letter to U.S. Attorney John Durham, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, and Inspector General Michael Horowitz:'

good on him, and here's hoping durham's investigation of the fbi doesn't end up in a deep dark badger hole.

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Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 02/20/2020 - 12:43am

explaining the pardon offer was linked at The Conservative Treehouse. I have trouble accessing twitter on my computer, so here is a picture:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/19/media-jump-on-assange-co...

Dana Rohrabacher ✔
@DanaRohrabacher
There is a lot of misinformation floating out there regarding my meeting with Julian Assange so let me provide some clarity on the matter: http://www.rohrabacher.com/news #FreeAssange #SethRich #justice
4,667
2:02 PM - Feb 19, 2020

https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/meeting-wit...

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