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BREAKING: The DOJ has delivered Julian Assange's extradition package. It will not include additional charges. With the closure of their Grand Jury investigation into Assange what excuse can the DOJ possibly have to continue to detain Chelsea Manning? washingtonpost.com/local/public-s…
The most important questions media outlets should be asking regarding this story are, "how did the DOJ land on the selection of charges they levied against Assange? —and does this specific suite of charges serve multiple purposes, many advantageous to the Trump Administration?"
To begin to tackle this question one must first acknowledge that #Vault7 was the primary driver for Jeff Sessions to reopen the EDVA Grand Jury investigation into @Wikileaks and their associates with renewed zeal in November 2017.
You & I may be furious about the editorial decisions made by Wikileaks in the lead-up to the 2016 election but it was #Vault7 & the actions of the Shadowbrokers that had the intelligence community out for blood. Once the pressure came Sessions & Pompeo each made announcements.
In April 2017 Pompeo said the following: "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. ...It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information."
FULL REMARKS: cia.gov/news-informati…
FULL REMARKS: cia.gov/news-informati…
April 20, 2017 Jeffrey Sessions gave a public address wherein he declared his DOJ will pursue leak investigations (new and old) with a renewed vigor. This was the opening salvo of what will become the Trump administration's war on leakers and publishers. mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-…
As quickly as this administration’s crackdown on leaks began it quickly shifted focus away from it’s primary driver, the #vault7 publications, and onto other whistleblower probes —in more than one case redirecting charges DOJ previously declined to prosecute. This was by design.
While DOJ has one defendant in custody charged in relation to the #Vault7 publications, the Classified Information Procedures Act makes it is unlikely he will actually advance to trial on specific counts related to the disclosed files. docketbird.com/court-document…
Instead the defendant (who at this moment is in New York's MCC) is likely to be offered a plea to a host of charges in his indictment that do not directly relate to #Vault7. This part will continue to develop through the summer. fas.org/sgp/news/2018/…
Similarly, sensitivities involving the Classified Information Procedures Act, embarrassment for the intelligence community, & unknown variables related to the scale of the #Vault7 theft made a prosecution against @wikileaks over Vault7 a headache —the DOJ needed another way...
By November 2017 then AG Jeff Sessions tasked a Grand Jury in the Eastern District of Virginia with investigating @Wikileaks and their associates. Like a DJ digging in the crates, Sessions began to carefully curate a probe that would be less prosecutorial insomuch as political.
A similar Grand Jury was empaneled during the Obama Administration. It too investigated @Wikleaks but stopped short of prosecuting publications of truthful information —instead probing whether or not Julian Assange substantively violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). 
.@MatthewaMiller a former DOJ spokesperson underscored the problem facing the DOJ “[t]he problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists”
AG Eric Holder referred to this as the “New York Times problem.” If the DOJ were to prosecute @Wikileaks over the publication of classified information it would imperil journalistic practice. Hence the CFAA became the prosecutorial tool of choice.
During the Obama Admin the EDVA's Grand Jury was probing at least two specific instances to determine whether or not Wikileaks violated the CFAA. The 2011/2012 hacks and publications of information from Stratfor and HB Gary by Lulsec, and Chelsea Manning's 2010 disclosures.
In both instances the DOJ presented a prosecutorial theory that Julian Assange engaged in something other than journalism when he (according to the DOJ) assisted his sources with searching electronic material, obfuscated their tracks, or suggested something specific to look for.
While the Obama DOJ and Military investigated these instances and charged individuals allegedly involved with these events they stopped at prosecuting Wikileaks as publishers of the information they provided because in both cases they encountered the “New York Times problem.”
Fast forward to 2017»» Sessions' DOJ is being crushed like a vice under intelligence community pressure to make Wikileaks pay for #Vault7, public outrage over Wikileaks' impact on the election is everywhere, & Donald Trump is eager to move attention away from the "Russia Thing."
Sessions can't prosecute @Wikileaks over #Vault7 because of CIPA & whats at stake for US intelligence... & he certainly can't build a case around Wikileaks' & the 2016 election without risking exposure for Trump, Trump's kids, or do so without mentioning "the Russia thing."
So it's back to digging in the crates for DJ Jazzy Jeff Sessions. His mission, secure a case against Wikileaks that is politically fructiferous for his boss, regardless if he has to throw constitutional protections to the wind 🌬️📜🌬️
And why stop at @Wikileaks? While you're digging in the crates feel free to blow the dust off and resurrect any whistleblower cases Obama's DOJ declined to prosecute because doing so would run afoul constitutional protections of speech, press, or due process...
Imagine Sessions' DOJ at a buffet with fragments of untoward (albeit legal) acts from a publisher, intercepted evidence from sources ...and he has to compile a plate that will satiate an intelligence community as well as the political tastes of his very peculiar boss Donald Trump
They present the spread to the EDVA Grand Jury in order to obtain an indictment(s) that checks the following boxes...
✅ Gets @Wikileaks
❌ Does not mention #Vault7 files
❌Does not mention the 2016 Election
✅ Sends a chill to journalists & sources
✅ Makes would-be leakers think twice
✅ Unravels Barack Obama's legacy
✅ Provides red meat for the #MAGA base
❌ No Russians!
❌ Does not mention #Vault7 files
❌Does not mention the 2016 Election
✅ Sends a chill to journalists & sources
✅ Makes would-be leakers think twice
✅ Unravels Barack Obama's legacy
✅ Provides red meat for the #MAGA base
❌ No Russians!
At first read the list above would seem like too tall an order to secure a @Wikileaks indictment that checks all of the boxes, but a superseding indictment surrounding Chelsea Manning's 2010 disclosures does —the clincher is it does not matter if it ends in extradition or not.
The action itself (regardless of outcome) is the damage...
People have already been hit with judicial debris...
The chill is already here...
The damage is done...
People have already been hit with judicial debris...
The chill is already here...
The damage is done...
By March 2018 Jeff Sessions' special order Grand Jury in the EDVA already returned it's first indictment of Julian Assange but that was merely a placeholder in a three course superseding suite of indictments. justice.gov/usao-edva/pres…
Exactly one year later on March 7, 2019 the DOJ —in an effort to make the case fructiferous for Trump & throw red meat to his base— calls Chelsea Manning as a witness to ask her about the same event they already secured an indictment for the year prior sparrowmedia.net/2019/03/statem…
Should Chelsea testify: it would be a bow atop the indictment the DOJ secured the year prior. Should Chelsea be the principled activist we expect her to be: we'll remand her on charges of contempt. sparrowmedia.net/2019/03/lawyer…
At every juncture Trump has sought to undercut Barack Obama's legacy. The commutation of Chelsea Manning's sentence was one of President Obama's last acts as President & a distinct piece of his legacy. If Trump could not charge her this would have to do.
But why stop there? On the same day Chelsea was called to appear in front of the EDVA Grand Jury —THE SAME GRAND JURY was meeting regarding another young veteran of conscious named Daniel Everette Hale and the reporting of @jeremyscahill and publications by @theintercept.
Before Chelsea was even able to assert her protections... before the cuffs were clasped around her hands... the EDVA Grand Jury returned a 5 count espionage act indictment against Daniel Hale. The indictment would remain under seal until Hale's arrest: justice.gov/usao-edva/pres…
With each superseding charge in the month that followed it became painfully evident that the EDVA never required Chelsea's testimony in order to secure an indictment. Her detention remains more punitive than coercive, pointless and purely political.
As Memorial Day weekend 2019 approached Donald Trump was expected to pardon a rouges gallery of war criminals, many of whom were turned in by their own teams for offenses like gutting and slashing the throats of handcuffed Iraqi captives...
While these butchers were being considered for pardons for their war crimes; Chelsea, a young transgender veteran sat jailed, indefinitely, for failure to comply with a Grand Jury investigating events surrounding her 2010 disclosure of warcrimes.
...and simultaneously Daniel Everett Hale faced charges that could result in 50 years in prison for his alleged disclosure of extrajudicial killings via drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. theintercept.com/2019/05/15/the…
In this double standard of justice (war criminals vs. those who expose war criminals) Trump sends a dual message...
One to the Islamic world that declares he sees no wrong in psychotic brutality and the wanton murder of Muslims in their own lands, “welcome home boys;” and another to the press and their budding sources, “talk about this stuff and we’ll bury you under the fucking jail.”
I know I tried to keep part of this thread light-hearted when discussing Jeff Sessions and others but honestly I'm too sad to keep up the pithy internet tenor. Through resurrecting an old 2010 case Trump's DOJ has managed to do everything they set out to...
✅ Gets @Wikileaks
❌ Does not mention #Vault7 files
❌Does not mention the 2016 Election
✅ Sends a chill to journalists & sources
✅ Makes would-be leakers think twice
✅ Unravel Barack Obama's legacy
✅ Provide red meat for the #MAGA
❌ No Russians!
❌ Does not mention #Vault7 files
❌Does not mention the 2016 Election
✅ Sends a chill to journalists & sources
✅ Makes would-be leakers think twice
✅ Unravel Barack Obama's legacy
✅ Provide red meat for the #MAGA
❌ No Russians!
...and if the overt political nature of the superseding indictment against Julian Assange results in the US' extradition request being denied —so be it, that would be the cherry atop Trump's perfectly political star chamber. washingtonpost.com/local/public-s…
Sometimes it's hard for me to divorce myself from my work. I assume this thread will be added to piecemeal as this develops. Until then I leave you with this...
As Trump washes his hands of Assange, he distances himself from 2016, opens the door for a new chill on press freedoms, pardons war criminals and re-litigates the cases against those who expose them —all while throwing a young trans veteran onto the fire...
This is Chelsea watching July 4th fireworks in the capitol only weeks after she was released from a military prison.
With the closure of the Grand Jury investigation into Assange the DOJ has no justifiable reason to continue to hold Chelsea.
Chelsea deserves to be free again.
With the closure of the Grand Jury investigation into Assange the DOJ has no justifiable reason to continue to hold Chelsea.
Chelsea deserves to be free again.
