Recently, the protracted Assange case finally ushered in the finale. Assange admitted to leaking US military secrets and reached a plea agreement with the United States, and the United States also "opened the net" and sentenced Assange to 62 months in prison, offsetting the previous 62 months of British detention of Assange, and Assange was freed.
After reaching a plea agreement, the US side admitted that Assange had completed his sentence, and the US Department of Justice also dropped its request for Assange's extradition from the UK to the US.
Subsequently, Assange's website, WikiLeaks, posted on social media that Assange had completed all the "legal proceedings" and had successfully returned to his native Australia on an international flight.
Assange
Then the question arises, the website created by Assange leaked a large amount of confidential information of the US military, and presented all the war crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq to the world, and Assange has always been regarded as a thorn in the side of the CIA, so why does the United States change its mind and plan to let Assange live? This begins with Assange's legendary life.
In 2006, Assange created a website called WikiLeaks. Beginning in 2010, WikiLeaks exposed a large number of diplomatic cables and classified documents from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing to light the war crimes of the U.S. military. This was a "feat" in the United States at the time, and it was precisely for this reason that Assange ranked first with 92% of the votes in the "Time Magazine's annual Internet Person of the Year" poll, and the second place was Facebook founder Zuckerberg, and his approval rating was less than 5% at that time, which is enough to show the great impact on American society.
The U.S. Justice Department has also taken a tough approach, charging Assange with at least 17 counts of espionage and one count of computer misuse, while Assange faces at least 175 years in prison.
In order to avoid the full pursuit of the CIA, Assange hid in the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom in 2012, and successfully obtained Ecuadorian citizenship in 2017. Until 2019, Ecuadorian politics fell into turmoil, and Assange could no longer provide political asylum, so he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom, and then captured by the British government.
Subsequently, the United States filed an extradition application. Finally, in 2022, Patel, then British Foreign Secretary, approved the US extradition request. But the impact of Assange's case was so great that in the end, under Assange's appeal and the pressure of international public opinion, the extradition matter was not resolved, and until May this year, the British High Court still failed to make a formal ruling on the matter. It wasn't until Assange pleaded guilty and the US court sentenced Assange to 62 months in prison that the matter came to an end. In the final analysis, it is saying that Assange is freeing himself by pleading guilty in exchange for the United States not seeking to arrest Assange.
The United States has always had a key point in dealing with Assange, which is to demand that Assange plead guilty through an agreement. Sentencing Assange to 62 months in prison is actually a seemingly passable approach, and Assange, who has already served 62 months in the UK, is tantamount to no further measures against Assange.
There are two main reasons why the United States is doing this. One is to avoid conflict with the American idea of "free speech"; The other is to avoid shocking Biden's upcoming election.
In fact, the United States does not have sufficient legal basis for the arrest of Assange, because the content of the Espionage Act of the United States conflicts with the First Amendment. If the United States invokes the contents of the Espionage Act to prosecute Assange, it will most likely constitute an unconstitutional crisis, so it is not a wise option.
As long as the U.S. courts and Assange reach an agreement, then this is not a trial process, but an agreement process, and there is no need to cite the parts of the U.S. Espionage Act that conflict with the First Amendment, and at the same time, it does not constitute a "precedent" and successfully avoid unconstitutionality.
In addition, there is another reason why Assange is asked to plead guilty, which is to make an example of chickens and monkeys. The implication is that although the US court has used the agreement process to resolve the issue with Assange, it does not mean that the latecomer can also receive the same treatment, because the "guilty plea" shows that the US government will still hold the US government accountable for similar incidents.
This also means that if there is another person like Assange, the United States will still hold them accountable. In fact, since the Obama administration, the U.S. government has been cracking down on journalists and whistleblowers who expose illegal and even illegal practices within the U.S. military and government through the Espionage Act. For example, after Snowden leaked a large number of documents and contents of the US military surveillance to the British "Guardian", the United States has been trying to extradite Snowden to the United States for trial.
In addition to this, the Assange affair will be crucial to Biden's election this November. In April, Biden said he was "considering" dropping charges against Assange and the extradition attempt. Although Biden did not explain why he wanted to revoke Assange's extradition, it is likely to be in preparation for the November election. Because the accusations against Assange are becoming more and more unfavorable for Biden, who is running for re-election, because it is likely to turn into a faction in Trump's hands to launch an offensive against Biden on the issue of "free speech".
U.S. Congress
Previously, the bill passed by the U.S. Congress to demand the sale or ban of TikTok for a limited period of time, although the bill was promoted by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Trump picked himself out early. Then the pressure went to Biden, because without the passage of the Senate and Biden's signature, the bill would not have passed. This in itself is not conducive to Biden's next election momentum.
The ban bill around Tik Tok itself has made the Biden administration lose the high ground on the issue of "free speech", and even triggered a crisis around the unconstitutionality of the "First Amendment". Therefore, Biden is bound to make a big fuss about the issue of "freedom of speech", especially putting himself in the position of supporting "freedom of speech", and trying to throw this hot potato to Trump.
The United States demanded that Assange confess, but let Assange go, mainly for political purposes. At the end of the day, Biden wants to use this case to show the world something, especially what the United States desperately needs right now.