Thread by @kennardmatt

Interesting facet of the new revelations about the UK government campaign to get Assange out of embassy was how it chimed with an apparent campaign by the Guardian which ran from May to November 2018, culminating with the now infamous front-page Manafort / Assange story.

In his diaries, Alan Duncan says the Ecuadorian government were concerned in mid-2018 about the "domestic reaction" in Ecuador to rescinding Assange's asylum and that this was delaying them taking the final decision.

In May 2018, the Guardian began an apparent campaign with 10 articles on “Operation Hotel”, Ecuador’s Assange embassy operation. Authored by 3 Guardian - and 2 Ecuadorian - journalists, the main article was based on “documents seen by the Guardian” and anonymous “sources”.

It is not clear who leaked these documents or who these sources were but it's possible it was the Ecuadorian intelligence apparatus trying to smear Assange to prepare the conditions domestically (and internationally) for the eviction of Assange.

The apparent campaign continued for many months, consistently alleging with little or most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.

The articles can be viewed here:
theguardian.com/media/julian-a…
theguardian.com/media/julian-a…
theguardian.com/media/julian-a…

The final article in series came on 27 November 2018 from two Guardian reporters in Quito, Ecuador, alleging Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort visited Assange in embassy for "secret talks".

This story is now known to be a fraud. But by who and why?
theguardian.com/us-news/2018/n…

Sir Alan Duncan's diaries note that the Ecuadorian's had originally planned to expel Assange six weeks after the Guardian's Manafort/Assange article, on 9 January 2019, but it was delayed due to a technicality.

The Manafort story significantly increased pressure on the Ecuadorians to expel Assange, further linking the WikiLeaks publisher with Trump and Russia.

Assange was eventually expelled from embassy in April 2019 and has been in Belmarsh prison ever since.

https://twitter.com/SenFeinstein/status/1072977963421978625

Then foreign minister Alan Duncan admits in his diaries that he arranged a Daily Mail hit piece on the WikiLeaks publisher two days after he was seized from the embassy on April 11 2019. The article can be viewed here.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6…

Another highly dubious article in this Guardian campaign - "Revealed: Russia's secret plan to help Julian Assange escape UK" - came in Sept 2018.

The paper's own complaints panel found the article was "misleading" and urged clarifications be published.
theguardian.com/info/2019/dec/…