Thread by @HoarseWisperer

One thought re: the rather small, single charge in the Assange indictment:

The severity of the charges and potential punishment has a potential impact on other countries’ extradition decisions.

The greater the appearance of prosecutorial harshness, the harder the sell.

1/2

Reserving more substantial potential charges until Assange was arrested and extradited would be a reasonably logical approach since a giant stack of charges calling for a lengthy incarceration might chill the odds of extradition.

2/

In fact, were a foreign government to want to rid itself of its meddlesome house guest while facing criticism and pressure not to, one could imagine that government signaling that a small initial indictment would tilt their thinking favorably.

3/

As I wrote about last year, Ecuador’s current president inherited Assange and telegraphed early that he had no interest in playing long-term hotelier to the broom closet resident who smeared feces on embassy walls. (For real).

4/

Remains to be seen what the U.S. does next but we have been told Mueller didn’t have add’l sealed indictments - and that would make sense given the above.

Add’l indictments would make a liar of the U.S. had we and Ecuador agreed to extradite on only one charge pending.

5/

Were I betting person, I’d wager Mueller had a case against Assange wrapped in a relatively tidy package awaiting mere prosecution.

And I’d wager that case connects many of Mueller’s dots - from Russian operatives to Assange/Wikileaks to Trumpland figures like Stone.

6/

We’ll have to wait to see what happens next but with Barr throwing himself behind full obstruction of justice, don’t be shocked if we see no prosecutorial zeal out of the DOJ until leaks reveal the chargeable offenses being held back by Barr’s DOJ.

We shall see.

7/7