President Donald Trump boosted a tweet Monday promoting a controversial allegation from an indicted Ukrainian oligarch: that a top U.S. diplomat put fabricated information about the mogul in a diplomatic cable.

That diplomat happens to be one of Democrats key impeachment witnesses. And that oligarch happens to have a long-standing beef with Joe Biden.

Scott Adams, a Washington, D.C., talk radio host, sent out a tweet Monday night about U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who delivered some of the impeachment inquirys most damaging testimony yet. The tweet alleged that Taylor lied about Ukrainian natural gas baron Dmytro Firtash in a cable to State Department headquarters in 2008. At issue was a conversation Taylor had with Firtash in Kyiv that December. Taylor wrote in a diplomatic cable (later published by WikiLeaks) that Firtash told him he had acknowledged ties to Russian organized crime figure [Semion] Seymon Mogilevich, one of the most notorious accused mobsters on the planet. According to Taylor, Firtash said he needed Mogilevich's approval to get into business in the first place, but had not committed any crimes in the course of his business.

When WikiLeaks published the cable in 2010, Firtash issued a statement on his website disputing its contents. Firtash, the statement claimed,has never stated, to anyone, at any time, that he needed or received permission from Mr. Mogilevich to establish any of his businesses.

Earlier this year, Firtash reiterated that defense. Without mentioning any American official by name, he said someone must have fabricated the detail about Mogilevich. Taylor, meanwhile, has defended the State Departments notes.

The Justice Department appears to side with Taylor; its lawyers have argued in court that Firtash has ties to Russian organized crime. The criminal charges he faces, however, dont involve any such alleged relationships. Instead, the Justice Department charged him in 2014 with helming a conspiracy to bribe Indian government officials.

Trumps retweet, however, offers a presidential thumbs-up to Firtashs side of the story, and raises a new line of attack on Taylors credibility for the presidents allies.

Asked about his sourcing for the allegations against Taylor, Adams told The Daily Beast, My sources are solid Foggy Bottom people. He also noted the explanation for the cable that Firtash provided to The Daily Beast earlier this year.

This specific defense of Firtash took hold in The Hill over the summer, when columnist John Solomon, whose articles informed Rudy Giulianis Biden-Ukraine investigation, published a piece in July claiming that Special Counsel Robert Muellers deputy said Firtashs criminal charges in the U.S. might go away if he shared damaging information about Trump with Muellers team. Solomon cited multiple sources with direct knowledge and contemporaneous memos. Firtash and Solomon share the same lawyers: Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. The husband-wife team are veterans of the conservative movements most contentious legal battles, with longstanding ties in the Justice Department and Trump administration.

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Trump Sides With Indicted Oligarch Over His Own Diplomat - The Daily Beast

By Erik Kleinsmith,Associate Vice President, Public Sector Outreach, American Military University

Intelligencewhether you look at it as a community, business, or professionis inextricably bound by secrecy and security. Not only do intelligence personnel routinely collect and analyze highly sensitive and classified information about national threats, but these professionals must also actively work to protect that information from getting into the hands of adversaries and those who wish harm upon our nation.

Security is so important to the success of intelligence that professionals who specialize in information, network, and physical security have evolved along parallel trajectories over the past decades. Yet, despite the billions of dollars spent every year on each of these areas of security, its not enough to contain 100 percent of information leaks.

As recent embarrassing news stories can attest, leakers continually plague U.S. intelligence and national security. Leakers are individuals who share sensitive or classified information on a large scale, typically using the media as a conduit for their actions. These individuals are very different than spies, who often steal information for use by a foreign government or entity.

A recent example of a leaker is 30-year old Henry Kyle Frese, a counterterrorism analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency who was arrested for leaking classified information to an NBC and a CNBC reporter, one of whom he was in a romantic relationship with. Frese now faces up to 20 years in prison for his poor decisions and joins the ranks of other notorious leakers including:

While some interesting analysis arises from looking at each of these five prominent leakers separately, in order to predict who might be the next leaker, its important to evaluate and identify any patterns or commonalities among them.

One way to analyze the group is to apply threat profiling techniques. Threat profiling is a predictive analysis tool that can help organize information related to different threat groups, prioritize analysis, and present the analysis within a common framework so the information can be widely shared and understood.

When evaluating this group, one of the most significant outcomes is how little they have in common. The leakers share little in the way of their demographics, selected targets, or methods of operation. Theres not much commonality beyond the fact that they all leaked classified information.

In analyzing demographic information, their ages range from 22 (Manning) to 40 (Ellsberg). Each were employed in a different government agency within the U.S. Intelligence Community or Department of Defense. Two were military or government employees at the time of their leaks (Manning and Frese), while the rest were contractors in government service (Winner, Snowden, and Ellsberg). Three of the five were military veterans (Winner, Frese, and Snowden, albeit for only a few months). They differed in their education levels as well, ranging from achieving a Ph.D. (Ellsberg) to just holding a high school degree (Winner).

There is also no common pattern in their gender, with one female (Winner), three males (Snowden, Frese, and Ellsberg), and one male who now identifies as a female (Manning).

Analysts could go further into each individuals upbringing, social class, and even religion, but beyond the fact that they are all white, there are no discernable patterns that could help identify or predict which type of person may be most susceptible to becoming the next big leaker.

In analyzing other areas of the threat profile, we find that each leaker targeted different types of information and used different methods to spirit this information from inside a secure facility. Individuals used a photocopier (Ellsberg), a printer (Winner), a mobile phone (Frese), burned information to a CD (Manning), or downloaded documents to an SD card (Snowden).

In addition, they each had to find someone in the media who would be supportive of their cause and willing to broadcast the information. This was not a difficult task for any of them, especially after the creation of WikiLeaks.

To find at least one significant commonality, one must look elsewhere within the threat profile and analyze the motivations, goals, and objectives of each leaker.

Here we find that each leaker decided that their personal or political viewpoints were more important than the national security of the United States. Only one of them was politically active at the time of their leak (Ellsberg), but all of them had broadcasted their political views on social media, which was, at times, at odds with their job or position.

Whether they wanted to assist the career of their girlfriend (Frese), felt that the U.S. was doing something immoral or illegal (Snowden, Ellsberg), or simply wanted to personally affect national policy through embarrassment, each one of the leakers decided that sharing highly sensitive information with the worldincluding our enemieswas a better option than pursuing proper channels such as through an inspector general or legal office (although Snowden disputes this claim).

Identifying this commonality of motive is highly disturbing because it is the most difficult to predict, interdict, or minimize damage caused afterwards. Leakers and other insider threats only have to be successful once, while security professionals have to be successful all the time. In this regard, intelligence agencies and organizations are in a bind, having to take responsibility for leakers within their organization while at the same time being blamed for not sharing intelligence when tragedy occurs.

It is often stated over and over again that politics ruins intelligence. Leakers who choose to jeopardize national security in support of their own political viewpoints are the embodiment of that statement in the most visible and destructive way.

About the Author:Erik Kleinsmithis the Associate Vice President for Business Development inIntelligence, National & Homeland Security, and Cyber for American Military University. He is a former Army Intelligence Officer and the former portfolio manager for Intelligence & Security Training at Lockheed Martin. Erik is one of the subjects of a book entitledThe Watchers by Shane Harris, which covered his work on a program called Able Danger tracking Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. He currently resides in Virginia with his wife and two children. To contact the authors, emailIPSauthor@apus.edu.For more articles featuring insight from industry experts, subscribe toIn Public Safetys bi-monthly newsletter.

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Can We Predict the Next Leaker Using Threat Profiling Techniques? - In Public Safety

Consortium Newshas provided leading WikiLeaks coverage from as early as 2010, under its founder Robert Parry. Its another good reason to support Consortium News.

Joe LauriaEditor-in-Chief

On Dec. 16, 2010Robert Parry wrote an article on Consortium News about Julian Assange that is as relevant today as it was nine years ago. Parry wrote about the Obama administrations attempt to indict Assange for simply doing what all investigative journalists do: namely encourage their sources to turn over secret information even if they have to break the law to do so. While the Obama DOJ eventually decided against indictment because it would cross the red line of criminalizing journalism, the Trump administration crossed that very line on the very same evidence the Obama administration rejected. It was an especially prescient and relevant article from the late founder of Consortium News,written just eight months after thereleaseof the Collateral Murder video.

Bob wrote:

Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administrations reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.

Thats because the process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of conspiracy between reporter and source.

Robert Parry

Julian Assange

If you read the two indictments against Assange, for which the Trump administration wants the imprisoned publisher extradited from Britain to Virginia, they describe this very process of investigative journalism that Bob, one of Americas greatest investigative reporters, described in his piece. Assange is accused of helping Manning hide her identity, not to hack classified material that the indictment says Manning already had legal access to. And Assange is accused of goading Manning to give over more material, as if that is a crime. The indictments describe journalism, not hacking.

Essentially what Bob was saying is: all investigative journalists are Julian Assange. And thats why corporate media sell-outs, who defend the powerful and not the public, dont consider Assange a journalist, though has done exactly their job, only better. The satirical publication The Onion put these made-up words into the mouth of Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, a frequent target of Bobs ire:

Its abundantly clear that Mr. Assange was focused on exposing documented evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan without so much as a thought for the journalists who faithfully parroted the U.S. militarys talking points when we could have been investigating information that ran contrary to that narrativedoes he realize how that makes us look?

In the years since that article by Bob, Consortium News coverage of WikiLeaks and Assange has grown into the most extensive to be found in either established or alternative media. Last year the site began hosting a weekly online video vigil for Assange while he was still in the Ecuador embassy, which developed into CN Live!Around the time of his arrest on April 11, 2019 we provided wall-to-wall coverage for several days and continue to remain on top of the story. Last weeks CN Live! was completely devoted to Assange.

In the face of corporate media malpractice on this story, we remain committed to fighting to get the facts out about Assangea journalistic test case for the ages on which the future of journalism literally hinges. But we cant do it without you. So please give a tax-deductible contribution to our Fall Fund Drive so that youll still be able to turn to Consortium News for the latest news, analysis and commentary on the plight of Julian Assange and a free press.

Please honor Bob Parrys legacy and help us cover Julian Assange bydonating generously to our Fall Fund Drive. Weve almost hit our target!

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WikiLeaks Coverage: Another Good Reason to Support Consortium News - Consortium News

Today WikiLeaks publishes a statement made by a panel that listened to testimony and reviewed evidence from a whistleblower from the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) last week. To accompany this statement, Wikileaks is also publishing a previously leaked engineering assessment of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria on April 7th last year. This assessment was omitted in the final report by the OPCW, which does not support its findings.

WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW whistleblower. He says: The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation.

We call out to people within the OPCW to leak these documents securely to us via wikileaks.org/#submit One of the panel members was Dr Jos Bustani, the first Director-General of the OPCW, who concluded that: The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing

In support of the OPCWs original objectives, the panel called upon the organisation to re-establish its credibility and legitimacy by allowing all inspectors who took part in the Douma investigation to come forward and report their differing observations in an appropriate forum of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention

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OPCW Whistleblower Panel on the Douma attack of April 2018 - WIKILEAKS

If we were confident the president did not commit a crime we would have said so, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said at a May press conference after releasing his eponymous report. Now, we may find out what Muellerwas talking about.

On Friday, as Trump and Republicans continued to attack the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats,Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued a decision that may have sealed Trump's fate. Howell ruled that the Department of Justice must provide Congress with the unredacted version of the Mueller report as well as the grand jury testimony and related materials. The unredacted information disclosed in the report could answer what did Trump know and when did he know it.

Specifically, Howells ruling sets into motion a series of events that could reveal Trump knew in advance about the emails stolen by Russia and released by WikiLeaksin 2016 to harm Hillary Clinton. The events are the release of the unredacted Mueller report to Congress by October30, the Roger Stone-WikiLeaks trial scheduled to begin on November5, and the public impeachment inquiry hearings by the House that will start a week or so later. Collectively, these three events could show a pattern by Trump of seeking foreign assistance for his campaigns in 2016 and 2020, which is illegal and bolstersthe impeachment inquiry.

REP. JIM BANKS: ADAM SCHIFF LIES ABOUT TRUMP REPEATEDLY SHOULDN'T BE LEADING IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

Remember, Congress never received the unredacted Mueller report with the grand jury testimony and related materials they are entitled to because Attorney General William Barr wrongly withheld it since Mueller submitted his report to Barr last April. Now Congress is about to get it and that could be the undoing of Trump.

First, Howells decision not only requires that the redactions, grand jury testimonyand underlying evidence in the Mueller report be released to the House Judiciary Committee by Oct. 30, but it also established that the impeachment inquiry is legitimate. Tipping the scale even further toward disclosure is the publics interest in a diligent and thorough investigation into, and in a final determination about, potentially impeachable conduct by the president described in the Mueller report, Howell said.

The Mueller report contains many redacted passages of interest, including possible references to a call between Trump and Stone about the release of emails by WikiLeaks that could confirm Michael Cohens testimony about it. Cohen alleged to the House Oversight Committee last March that Trump received a phone call from Stone between July 17 and 20, 2016,informing him that WikiLeaks was planning to release emails that would damage Hillary Clinton. By the end of that week, WikiLeaks posted thousands of emails stolen by Russia in an attempt to disrupt the Democratic National Convention and harm Clinton.

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In addition, the alleged call between Trump and Stone is likely to be addressed in the Stone-WikiLeaks trial scheduled to start in Washington on Nov. 5.Stone faces a seven-count indictment that includes one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.The combination of the unredacted Mueller report and the Stone trialcould confirm whether Trump knew about the release of the emails from Stone in advance.

Finally, the House plansto begin public hearings into the impeachment inquiry about a week after the start of the Stone-WikiLeaks trial. The inquiry is focused on the call by Trump to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and the relationship between the release of military aid and thepressure to investigate Joe Biden. If the unredacted Mueller report and Stone trial reveal that Trump knew in advance that the stolen emails were going to be released, then it establishes a pattern by Trump of seeking foreign assistance to help his campaigns. That is illegal and thereby bolstersthe investigation into his call to Zelensky.

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Such disclosures would further increase public support for Trumps impeachment and removal from office. The combination of the facts, evidence, and public support would force many, if not most, Republicans to support Trumps impeachment as well.

The stretch between Halloween and Thanksgiving could bring the greatest threat to Trump to date with much to fear and little to be thankful for. It may well be the beginning of his impeachment and the end of his time in office.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY MARY ANNE MARSH

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Mary Anne Marsh: The walls are closing in on President Trump - Fox News

WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization which uses its website to publish governmental, private data, corporate or religious documents that had previously been secret. The website was started in 2006, and had over 1.2 million documents in its database by the time one year had passed. Usually, it does not give out the names and addresses of people who post documents. The site is based in Sweden. Though its name is similar to Wikipedia, it is not related to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.[1] The name was chosen because WikiLeaks used a wiki model at first, where people could edit the site, but it has since changed and is no longer open for editing.

In July 2010, WikiLeaks was in the news for publishing over 76,900 documents related to the War in Afghanistan. In October that same year, WikiLeaks posted almost 400,000 documents that were about the War in Iraq.

This was the largest ever leak of documents about the US Army. It reported mainly on deaths of civilians, soldiers, and sightings of homemade bombs or armed civilians.[2]

On 28 November WikiLeaks and five major newspapers - from Spain (El Pas), France (Le Monde), Germany (Der Spiegel), the United Kingdom (The Guardian), and the United States (The New York Times) - all began to publish the first 291 of 251,287 confidential diplomatic cables from 274 embassies dated from 19662010.[3] WikiLeaks plans to release all of the cables in phases over several months.[3]

This leak was widely covered by the international media, as many of the leaks contained information that affected countries other than the United States.[4][5][6][7][8] Some leaks were published by other news organizations like Fairfax Media.[9] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that an "open and transparent government is something that the President believes is truly important. But the stealing of classified information and its dissemination is a crime".[10]

Wikileaks posted more than 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to show they tried to undermine Bernie Sanders.[11]

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WikiLeaks - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Decisive, action-oriented and results focused leader with a background offering 14 years of experience in delivering complex Government and commercial Software Development projects.- Deep understanding of all variations of government contract types.- Dedicated to analyzing and completing high-exposure projects efficiently, effectively, within budget, and on time through the use of analytical techniques though expert knowledge of project management methodologies, including Agile Scrum.- Specialize in all stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for enterprise software, hardware and system implementations and defining methods for improvement based on the organizations mission.- Experience in managing internal organizational teams and large inter-agency programs.- Detail-oriented, able to problem-solve complicated situations; implement time-savings, efficiency changes, and ability to deal with demanding customers, and project organization image in a positive manner.- Highly-motivated, self-directed, and promoted to positions with increased responsibility.- Offer outstanding talents in resource loading (recruiting/staffing), resource leveling (sharing resources), team building, team consensus, budget management, developing project scope (budgets, timelines and delivery dates), customer relationships, cost avoidance, continuous design improvements and conducting status meetings and customer reviews.- Passionate about opportunities to collaboratively or independently create and optimize organizational strategy that is aligned to client requirements. Demonstrates high-impact relationship building, client-interfacing, and communication/presentation skills.- Driven by new challenges and desire to be successful in all endeavors and recognized for achieving success in increasing efficiency for contractor and Government organizations.

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ice.wikileaks.org - ICE Patrol

After seven years of self-imposed exile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London. The U.S. and Sweden both want him extradited. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Federal prosecutors charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with espionage Thursday for conspiring to revealnational security secrets in what they described as one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.

The Justice Department revealed18 charges against Assange. They include allegations that he aided and abetted former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning's efforts to leak classified documents to the anti-secrecy group and committed a crime by publishing them on the internet.

This release made our adversaries stronger and more knowledgeable, and the United States less secure," said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security.

The charges are an escalation of the government's efforts to combat leaks of its secrets, and raised the difficult question of how or whether to distinguish WikiLeaks from journalists who frequently publish information the government would rather keep secret. They drew quick condemnation from advocates for press freedom.

Bruce Brown, the executive director of theReporters CommitteeforFreedom of the Press, said criminalizing the receipt and publication of classified documents threatens all journalists."Any government use of the Espionage Act to criminalize the receipt and publication of classified information poses a dire threat to journalists seeking to publish such information in the public interest," he said.

Assange has argued that he should be immune from prosecution as a journalist, authorities said he was chargedfor releasing a narrow class of documents that dealt with people who provided the United States with intelligence in war zones. TheWikiLeaks databases containapproximately 90,000 Afghanistan War-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq War-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefsand 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables, according to prosecutors.

The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy, and we thank you for it. It is not and never has been the department'spolicy to target them for reporting," Demers said. "But Julian Assangeis no journalist."

Indeed, no responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposely publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential human sources in war zones," Demers said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven into Southwark Crown Court in London on May 1, 2019.(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

The Justice Department revealed in April that it had filed a criminal case against Assange after Ecuador expelled him from its embassy in London. That charge alleged that he conspired with Manning to crack a password to a military computer where classified information was stored. The case was filed in 2018 but kept secret for more than a year.

The allegations revealed on Thursday were more wide-ranging and more directly related to WikiLeaks' efforts to obtain and publish U.S. government secrets.

Barry Pollack, Assange's lawyer, said it is unprecedented for the government to charge someone under the Espionage Act for encouraging sources to provide truthful information and then publishing it.

"The fig leaf that this is merely about alleged computer hacking has been removed," Pollack said. "These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have taken by the U.S. government. "

WikiLeaks tweeted that the case marked the end of national-security journalism.

"This is madness," the group said. "It is the end of national security journalism and the First Amendment."

Nearly all of the new charges against Assange accuse him of violating the Espionage Act, a federal law meant to safeguard defense information. It's unusual for prosecutors to bring such a case against someone who does not work for the government and has not promised to keep its secrets.

The charges include one count of conspiracy to receive national security information, seven counts of obtaining it, nine counts of disclosing it and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Prosecutors alleged that Assange also revealed the names of intelligence sources in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Assange is alleged to have created grave and imminent risk to their lives and liberty, Demers said.

Assange is not charged simply because he was a publisher, said Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, where the charges against Assange were filed.

Assange was arrested April 11in London after Ecuador's government ended his seven years of self-imposed exile and expelled him from its London embassy. He is fighting extradition to the United States.

Over four months in 2010, Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of secret reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as State Department cables and information about detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Manning turned the records over to WikiLeaks, which passed them to journalists and published them on the internet.

Assange had been holed up with political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012. After his arrest, he was sentenced in Britain to 50 weeks in jail for jumping bail while facing extradition to Sweden on sexual-assault allegations.

Assange also faces sexual misconduct allegations in Sweden. While one Swedish case of alleged sexual misconduct against Assange was dropped in 2017, when the statute of limitations expired, a rape allegation remains. The statute of limitations in the rape case expires in August 2020. Assange has denied wrongdoing, asserting that the allegations were politically motivated and that the sex was consensual.

More on Julian Assange's legal battles:

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, faces US hacking conspiracy charge

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange given 50-week jail sentence for skipping bail

Sweden requests detention order for Julian Assange

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May 23, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC/ UpdatedMay 24, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

By Ken Dilanian and Doha Madani

The Department of Justice announced 17 new charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange on Thursday, including a virtually unprecedented move to charge him with publishing classified material a move that could pose challenges to First Amendment protections.

In a superseding indictment, a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, has accused Assange of breaking the law by inducing Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning to send him classified documents and then publishing material that included the names of confidential sources who provided information to American diplomats.

The 17 counts were tacked on to a single count accusing Assange of conspiring with Manning to crack a Department of Defense password. Assange, who was taken out of the Equadorian embassy in London in April, is being held in a London jail for jumping bail on a sex charge and awaiting extradition to the United States.

The government says Manning provided Assange and WikiLeaks with databases containing about 90,000 Afghanistan War-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq War-related reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables.

The material, which began to be published in 2010, made headlines across the world and shed light on U.S. government activities.

The decision to charge Assange in connection with publishing secrets crosses an important line. The U.S. government has never successfully prosecuted anyone other than a government employee for disseminating unlawfully leaked classified information, according to University of Chicago Law Prof. Geoffrey Stone, even though the Espionage Act has long been on the books.

Journalists publish classified material regularly, yet the government has opted not to prosecute a journalist even when government officials have been deeply angered by the revelations of classified intelligence information.

"Today the government charged Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for encouraging sources to provide him truthful information and for publishing that information," Assange's attorney Barry J Pollack said in a statement. "The fig leaf that this is merely about alleged computer hacking has been removed. These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the U.S. government."

In a briefing for reporters, Justice Department officials said they do not consider Assange a journalist, and they took pains to say they will not target journalists.

The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said.

Demers and other officials said they only charged Assange with publishing a narrow subset of material that included the names of confidential sources, including people who risked their lives talking to the U.S. government.

Assange thereby is alleged to have created grave and imminent risk to their lives and liberty, Demers said.

While that action by Assange and Wikileaks has long been criticized, press freedom advocates have worried that criminalizing the act of publishing opens the door for the government to charge journalists who make publishing decisions government officials dont like.

For example, CIA officials were furious when The New York Times in 2015 published the true name of a longtime CIA counterterrorism official, Mike DAndrea, who had been in charge of the agencys targeted killing program. The Times said the move was justified because of his leadership role in one of the governments most significant paramilitary programs and because his name was known to foreign governments and many others.

WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization Assange founded, tweeted, This is madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first amendment.

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked secrets and is now living in Moscow, tweeted, The Department of Justice just declared warnot on Wikileaks, but on journalism itself. This is no longer about Julian Assange: This case will decide the future of media.

Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney who brought the charges, told reporters that the United States has not charged Assange for passively obtaining or receiving classified information.

Rather, he said, Assange is charged for his alleged complicity in illegal acts to obtain or receive voluminous databases of classified information.

Any government use of the Espionage Act to criminalize the receipt and publication of classified information poses a dire threat to journalists seeking to publish such information in the public interest, irrespective of the Justice Departments assertion that Assange is not a journalist, said Bruce Brown, executive director Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Manning is in jail in Alexandria, having refused to testify before the grand jury in the case.

After Assange helped Manning purloin classified documents, the superseding indictment charges, Assange published on WikiLeaks material that contained the unredacted names of human sources who provided information to United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to U.S. State Department diplomats around the world. These human sources included local Afghans and Iraqis, journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents from repressive regimes.

The indictment says that act put the unredacted named human sources at a grave and imminent risk of serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention.

Asked by a reporter whether they could point to an example of a U.S. source who had been harmed by the publication, the Justice Department officials were unable to do so. But they said they were prepared to prove that the sources were at risk.

Ken Dilanian is an NBC News correspondent covering intelligence and national security.

Doha Madani is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Originally posted here:
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange indicted on 17 new ...

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has long been targeted by the United States for his role in releasing secret government documents.

Now he is just one flight away from being in American custody after years of seclusion in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. A newly unsealed indictment showed that American prosecutors charged him with conspiring to hack a government computer.

Some quick background: Mr. Assange shot to international prominence in 2010 when WikiLeaks published secret material about American military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as confidential cables sent among diplomats. In 2012, he took refuge at the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced questions about sexual assault allegations.

More recently, Mr. Assange has been under attack for his organization's release during the 2016 presidential campaign of thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, leading to revelations that embarrassed the party and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

American investigators have linked those disclosures to efforts by Donald Trump's campaign to damage Ms. Clinton, but Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian election meddling, did not file any charges against Mr. Assange.

Here's a fuller timeline of how Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks got to this point.

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How Julian Assange and WikiLeaks Became Targets of the U.S ...