It seems that the shades have finally been ripped off of the persecution of Julian Assange. Fallen by the wayside is the pretense used to justify his arbitrary detention: allegations of sexual misconduct, of Russian involvement, and of aiding Trumps ascension to the Presidency.

Gone is the pretense that it is not the rabid wolves of the US and UK military state baying, slavering for Assanges blood. Former intelligence assets in the guise of journalists openly call for Assanges arrest.

Recent reports have indicated that formerly secret charges pending against Julian Assange will focus on material relating to Chelsea Manning and the earliest releases published by WikiLeaks. Alternatively, on WikiLeaks Vault7 releases in March 2017 or on the help he and his organisation gave to Edward Snowden to get the NSA whistleblower to safe asylum.

This latest news directly counters allegations published by Russiagate hysterics, who suggested the charges would relate to WikiLeaks 2016 publications of the DNC and John Podesta emails. Nonetheless, we can assume that in the coming days and months, establishment hackswill pivot and attack Assange just as loudly and abhorrently as they always have. Few of them will bother to remind their readers that the campaign emails of a political party are not US Government documents, are not classified Secret or Top Secret, and are therefore not going to be the subject of a federal prosecution in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), where the jury pool is selected from a population with the highest concentration of US intelligence and defence industry employees in the United States.

The distinction between the possible prosecution of the WikiLeaks co-founder for his 2016 publications versus the earliest WikiLeaks releases is a massively important one. For Russiagate proponents, the support for Assanges prosecution becomes much more difficult if the charges against the publisher stem from the revelation of Bush-era war crimes, not the exposure of Hillary Clinton and the DNCs corruption.

As noted by numerous press outlets and press freedom advocates, the prosecution the end point of the longstanding persecution of Julian Assange represents, as James Goodale, New York Times counsel for the Pentagon Papers, eloquently points out, a grave threat to the freedom of the press, in the United States and all over the world. That US espionage laws would be used against an Australian citizen who has never lived or published in the US, should send a shockwave to every international journalist who comments on US affairs and foreign policy decisions.

In Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi relayed the statements of Assanges US-based lawyer, Barry Pollack:

I would think it is not related to the 2016 election since that would seem to fall within the purview of the Office of Special Counsel.

Another member of Julian Assanges legal team, Hanna Jonasson, was also quick to clarify confusion on which material served as the basis for the charges against Assange in an informative Twitter thread:

Jonasson directlyrefutes what she referred to as the wildly speculative suggestion of security journalist and FBI informantMarcy Wheeler, who claimed that the charges against the former WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief related to the Russiagate scandal.

Jonasson related that the document revealing the charges indicated that the indictment is in the Eastern District of Virginia. She wrote: This is where the WikiLeaks Grand Jury (Ref:10GJ3793) has been empanelled since 2010 in order to indict Assange over the publications that Chelsea Manning was convicted over.

Jonasson continued: The [WikiLeaks] Grand Jury was headed at the time by Neil MacBride (who was also responsible for the prosecution of CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou). MacBride is an aggressive proponent of the extraterritorial application of US criminal jurisdictionWorking under MacBride was Zachary Terwilliger, at the time MacBride was leading the WikiLeaks Grand Jury relating to [Chelsea Mannings] case. Terwilligers signature is on the court document that revealed the sealed indictment against Assange on Thursday.

In the first live-streamed event following the gagging of Julian Assange in March, John Kiriakou relayed that the Eastern District of Virginia is known asthe Espionage court, as no national security defendant had ever won a case there, and it is the home of the Central Intelligence Agency. He said: Assange couldnt possibly get a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Jonasson also related that a 2011 Stratfor email published by WikiLeaks in 2012 suggested the existence of a sealed indictment against Assange. She added that:Muellers grand jury is impanelled in Washington DC, not EDVA. Some reports oddly assume that the indictment has to do with Muellers probe, rather than a grand jury impanelled in EDVA.

As intimated by Jonasson, the existence of such charges against Assange is hardly a new revelation. In an article published with Common Dreams,Nozomi Hayase wrote: On November 29, 2010, the US Attorney General publicly confirmed the existence of a secret grand jury investigation into disclosures of classified information made by WikiLeaks.

Hayase continued, eloquently conveying the importance of WikiLeaks and the whistleblowers it protects, calling alleged sources like Chelsea Manning the conscience of America:

In this war of a tyrannical state on the First Amendment, Assange became a lightning rod to take all the heat, so ordinary people can uphold these ideals that are inscribed in their hearts, defending them against all enemies, foreign and domesticAs the invisible beast inside the US government devours the hearts of these brave young patriots, WikiLeaks acted as a shield. This was demonstrated in their extraordinary source protection.

As discussed in Suzie DawsonsBeing Julian Assange, edited by this writer, Julian Assange and WikiLeakss central role in raising support for Chelsea Manning has been virtually memory-holed by establishment media. While the legacy press is happy to interview Manning on her choice in lipstick color, it is loath to recall that it was Julian Assange who, in January 2017,promised his own extraditionon the condition that Manning was to be given clemency. Four months later, thanks in part thanks to Assanges promise, Chelsea Manning was freed.

The recent confirmation of charges against Assange led to a number of organizations reiterating their support for him, including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The recent confirmation of the USs intent to extradite and prosecute Assange also confirms what his supporters have stated for years: Assange is a political prisoner. His asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London has been transformed under the government of President Lenin Moreno into a torture chamber,that Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges recently characterized as a little house of horrors.

In the title of his piece, Hedges compares Assanges treatment to the Crucifixion of Christ. Like Nozomi Hayases description of WikiLeaks acting as a shield for whistleblowers, Hedgess allegorical comparison of Assanges treatment with crucifixion gets at the heart of not only the journalists shocking suffering on behalf of others and evident selflessness, but also the degree to which the slow death of Assange is taking place in public, mocked by crowds of what should be his strongest protectors: fellow journalists.

In a discussion with fellow journalist and Editor-In-Chief of Consortium News Joe Lauria, it was alleged that Assange went multiple days without food after his lawyers were forbidden from visiting him. Chillingly, it appears that Assange has been barred from meeting with his legal counsel again over the weekend, preventing him from preparing for an upcoming US Court hearing:

As Hedges discussed with Lauria, and as intimated by Christine Assange in an audio clip played during the RT segment, it appears that the Ecuadorian government is essentially smoking Assange out of the embassy by making his protracted confinement there unlivable.

Meanwhile, theCommittee to Protect Journalistsstated: We are closely monitoring reports that prosecutors have prepared a sealed indictment against Julian Assange While the charges are not known, we would be concerned by a prosecution that construes publishing government documents as a crime. This would set a dangerous precedent that could harm all journalists, whether inside or outside the United States.

With the establishment backed into a corner, forced to prosecute Assange not only in a legal setting, but in the court of public opinion, for WikiLeakss earliest releases, we can expect to see an attempt to reignite smears portraying Assange and WikiLeaks as having recklessly published unredacted material during Cablegate. This claim was refuted during Chelsea Mannings trial by General Robert Carr, head of the Pentagon Task Force investigating any potential harms from the publication, who stated, under oath, that they had been unable to find a single person who had been physically harmed by WikiLeaks war leaks and Cablegate. Most of the public remains, however, ill-informed on the rigorous process with which WikiLeaks both validates and carefully redacts its publications.

During Cablegate, this effort was foiled by the reckless decision of a journalist with the Guardian newspaper.Press reports at the time relayed WikiLeakss official statement on the publication of unredacted copies of US State Department cables:

A Guardian journalist has, in a previously undetected act of gross negligence or malice, and in violation of a signed security agreement with the Guardians Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger, disclosed top secret decryption passwords to the entire, unredacted, WikiLeaks Cablegate archive We have already spoken to the (US) State Department and commenced pre-litigation action.

In Laura Poitrass controversial documentary Risk, one crucial scene depicts WikiLeaks attempt to contact the US State Department, then under Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, in order to warn them that thousands of US diplomatic cables had been leaked, unredacted, due to the incompetence of David Leigh and Luke Harding.

The Daily Dotrecalled Julian Assanges account of the fiasco:

In an act of gross negligence the Guardian newspaperour former partnerhad published the confidential decryption password to all 251,000 cables in a chapter heading in its book, rushed out hastily in February 2011 At the rate the information was spreading, we estimated that within two weeks most intelligence agencies, contractors, and middlemen would have all the cables, but the public would not.

I decided it was necessary to bring forward our publication schedule by four months and contact the State Department to get it on record that we had given them advance warning. The situation would then be harder to spin into another legal or political assault. Unable to raise Louis Susman, then US ambassador to the UK, we tried the front door.

WikiLeaks investigations editor Sarah Harrison called the State Department front desk and informed the operator that Julian Assange wanted to have a conversation with Hillary Clinton. Predictably, this statement was initially greeted with bureaucratic disbelief. We soon found ourselves in a reenactment of that scene in Dr. Strangelove, where Peter Sellers cold-calls the White House to warn of an impending nuclear war and is immediately put on hold. As in the film, we climbed the hierarchy, speaking to incrementally more superior officials until we reached Clintons senior legal advisor. He told us he would call us back. We hung up, and waited.

As reported byThe Atlantic, WikiLeaks threatened to sue the Guardian over the publication of the encryption password by David Leigh.

Over the years that Assange has been illegally trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy, his selflessness has been mislabelled arrogance, and a lack of concern for himself has been branded callousness. Adding insult to injury, the very same hack journalists responsible for the unredacted leak of the State Department cables branded Assange unfeeling.

An article published by New Matildain 2015 illustrated the betrayal by the Guardian in this oft-overlooked history of Cablegates rocky release. The same individuals, Luke Harding and David Leigh, who exposed vulnerable sources in publishing the encryption password ironically labelled Assange callous and arrogant:

People have made money, often big money, while WikiLeaks has struggled to surviveWith not a penny going to Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The books authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, gratuitously described Assange as a damaged personality and callous. They also revealed the secret password he had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing the US embassy cables.

Returning to the present, it seems necessary to get some obvious points out of the way: the revelation of longstanding charges against Assange sweeps away the paltry establishment narrative that has portrayed him as hiding within the broom closet of the Ecuadorian Embassy for fear of allegations of sexual assault. It also negates the line copy-pasted by endless trolls: He can leave whenever he likes. We now can state unequivocally that Assange is being tortured by the Ecuadorian government, while under siege by the US and UK military establishment, for the crime of searingly accurate journalism.

In essence, the unelected power structure of the US and UK has consistently and specifically projected its psychopathic nature onto Assange and WikiLeaks. Indeed, the unparalleled lengths WikiLeaks has gone to in order to protect its alleged sources and even non-sources, like Edward Snowden can be directly contrasted with journalists like Marcy Wheeler who voluntarily turned her unnamed source in to the FBI. The hatred with which Marcy and her cohorts appraise Assange might, in this light, appear rather natural.

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Assange Prosecution Will Focus On Chelsea Manning Era ...

WASHINGTON Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted in 2013 of leaking archives of secret military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, revealed in an interview that she had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury and vowed to fight it.

The subpoena does not say what prosecutors intend to ask her about. But it was issued in the Eastern District of Virginia and comes after prosecutors inadvertently disclosed in November that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been charged under seal in that district.

Ms. Manning, who provided a copy of the subpoena to The New York Times, said that her legal team would file a motion on Friday to quash it, arguing that it would violate her constitutional rights to force her to appear. She declined to say whether she would cooperate if that failed.

Given what is going on, I am opposing this, she said. I want to be very forthright I have been subpoenaed. I dont know the parameters of the subpoena apart from that I am expected to appear. I dont know what Im going to be asked.

Ms. Manning said she had retained Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a New York attorney, to represent her in fighting the subpoena. Her website lists grand-jury representation as a specialty, saying: We will work to quash the subpoena on all available grounds, assist you in identifying lawful ways to resist the subpoena, and work to prevent a contempt finding in the event that you refuse to testify.

Mr. Assange has been living for years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid arrest. It has not been clear what the sealed charge or charges relate to, but prosecuting him for publishing government secrets would raise novel issues about the limits of First Amendment press freedoms.

Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the office of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, declined to comment. But there were multiple reasons to believe that the subpoena is related to the investigation of Mr. Assange.

Among them, the subpoena was requested by Gordon D. Kromberg, an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District. After an inadvertent court filing revealed that Mr. Assange has been charged under seal, it was Mr. Kromberg who successfully argued before a judge that any such charges remain a secret and should not be unsealed.

Moreover, Ms. Manning said, Mr. Kromberg has told her lawyers in vague terms that prosecutors wanted to talk to her about her past statements. During her court-martial, Ms. Manning delivered a lengthy statement about how she came to copy archives of secret documents and send them to WikiLeaks, including her online interactions with someone who was likely Mr. Assange.

Its disappointing but not surprising that the government is continuing to pursue criminal charges against Julian Assange, apparently for his role in uncovering and providing the public truthful information about matters of great public interest, said Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Mr. Assange.

In recent years, Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks have become notorious for their role in disseminating Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers as part of the Russian governments covert efforts to damage the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help Donald J. Trump win.

The antisecrecy group, however, had previously vaulted to fame by publishing archives of classified documents including logs of significant events in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and diplomatic cables that revealed many things about what was secretly happening in the world. All of those initial files, it eventually emerged, had been provided by Ms. Manning.

In 2017, WikiLeaks published documents about C.I.A. hacking tools. A software engineer, Joshua A. Schulte, has been charged with that leak.

After Ms. Mannings leaks, the Obama administration had considered trying to indict Mr. Assange. But while it has become common to prosecute officials under the Espionage Act for leaking files, using it against someone who merely received and published leaked files raised fears about chilling investigative reporting.

The Obama legal team eventually shelved the idea. But the Trump legal team moved forward with developing a sealed criminal complaint against Mr. Assange for something last summer, providing a potential basis to seek his extradition were he to emerge from the embassy.

The subpoena to Ms. Manning, dated Jan. 22, says that she was ordered to appear on Feb. 5 before a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va. But she said that date got pushed back, and she is now supposed to testify on March 5.

During her court-martial, Ms. Manning took responsibility for her actions and said that Mr. Assange had not directed them.

No one associated with W.L.O. an abbreviation she used to refer to the WikiLeaks organization pressured me into sending any more information, she said at the time. I take full responsibility.

Because that account would seemingly be helpful to the defense, she said she wondered if prosecutors wanted to try to get her to back away from it. She would not do so, she insisted, while criticizing the secrecy that surrounds grand jury proceedings.

I am not going to contribute to a process that I feel is dangerous and could potentially place me in a position where I am forced to backtrack on the truth, she said.

Read more here:
Disclosing Subpoena for Testimony, Chelsea Manning Vows to ...

WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning on Friday challenged a subpoena compelling her appearance before a federal grand jury convened in Alexandria, Virginia.

Attorneys representing Ms. Manning, a 31-year-old activist and former soldier, filed a motion to quash opposing a subpoena seeking her participation in unspecified grand jury proceedings scheduled next Tuesday, March 5, according to Chelsea Resists, a committee launched by her supporters.

The motion was filed with Judge Claude Hilton in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and ordered sealed pending further proceedings, the committee said.

Joshua Steuve, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Alexandria, declined to comment.

Both the existence of the subpoena and Ms. Mannings objections were first reported by The New York Times late Thursday evening.

Given what is going on, I am opposing this, Ms. Manning told the newspaper. I want to be very forthright I have been subpoenaed. I dont know the parameters of the subpoena apart from that I am expected to appear. I dont know what Im going to be asked.

Despite the subpoena lacking specifics, Ms. Manning is presumably wanted for questioning about WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization she admittedly supplied with a trove of classified U.S. diplomatic and military files obtained while deployed in Iraq as an Army intelligence analyst. It requests her appearance at the same federal courthouse where the government previously questioned witnesses about WikiLeaks, and where prosecutors indicated months ago the existence of a sealed case charging Julian Assage, the website Australian-born publisher.

The Justice Department acknowledged in 2010 that the government was investigating WikiLeaks following its publication of material provided by Manning, including State Department cables and Pentagon documents detailing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other files.

Manning was convicted by an Army judge in 2013 and sentenced to 35 years in military prison, but was released in 2017 after the majority of her punishment was commuted by former President Barack Obama during his last days in office. Prosecutors have refused to confirm or deny whether the government is gunning for Mr. Assange, notwithstanding evidence suggesting he has already in legal hot water, however.

Assange has been charged, prosecutors in Alexandria wrote in a filing entered for an unrelated case in August. The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter, the filing said.

The Justice Department said the filing referencing charges against Mr. Assange was entered by mistake.

A nonprofit group, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, pounced on the error and sued seeking an order compelling the government to disclose details about any otherwise sealed charges against the WikiLeaks publisher prior to ultimately losing that case earlier this year.

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Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks source, fights subpoena seeking ...

Former American soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning poses outside the Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London, England, ahead of an event on Oct. 1, 2018.

Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

For Manning, the threat of further imprisonment is a particularly brutal one. Beginning in 2010, she was arrested, court-martialed, imprisoned, and tortured for exposing some of the worst crimes and brutalities of the Iraq and Afghan wars. She was released in 2017.

Given the secrecy of federal grand jury procedures, we cant know with any certainty to which potential case the subpoena pertains, or what Manning would be asked. But since it was issued in the Eastern District of Virginia, we can make the informed speculation that it relates to inadvertently disclosed charges filed under seal against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in that same district.

The New York Times reported that there were multiple reasons to believe that the subpoena is related to the investigation of Mr. Assange, including the district where the subpoena was issued and the assistant United States attorney that requested the subpoena, who is tied to the Assange prosecution. Another Assange associate, David House, told the Washington Post that he testified before the grand jury as well. It was all related to disclosures around the war logs, House said, a reference to the Iraq war documents that Manning released and Wikileaks published.

Mannings decision to fight her subpoena, however, is not a question of protecting Assange, nor obstructing valid government investigations into federal crimes. Her challenge is an act of resistance against government repression and in defense of a free press.

It should go without saying that were the grand jury related to the prosecution of Assange for revealing government secrets, this would have profound implications for the First Amendment and the media, which the Trump administration has consistently demonized and threatened.

The decision to subpoena Manning in itself should be seen as a punitive act from a hostile administration. President Donald Trump himself has made clearhis desire to see the whistleblower behind bars. Within the first days of his presidency, Trump tweeted that Manning was an Ungrateful TRAITOR who should never have been released from prison. With a grand jury subpoena, the government has found a way to expose the whistleblower to re-incarceration.

I object strenuously to this subpoena, and to the grand jury process in general, said Manning in a brief statement released by her support committee. Weve seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice.

Federal grand juries are some of the blackest boxes in the judicial system. Closed to the press, the public, and even attorneys for those who have been subpoenaed, the process is ripe for nefarious state use. For decades, federal grand juries have been used to investigate and intimidate activist communities from the late-19th-century labor movements, to the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and black liberationists of the last century, to environmentalists, anarchists, and indigenous-rights fighters more recently.

Prosecutors and other authorities use grand juries to map out political affiliations while sowing paranoia and discord. It is hard to see the subpoenaing of Manning, who gave exhaustive testimony at her court-martial and took full personal responsibility for her leaks, as anything but punitive.

The consequences for grand jury resistance are serious. Individuals who refuse to cooperate can be held in civil contempt by a judge and imprisoned for up to 18 months, the length of the grand jury. Its the sort of incarceration, like lengthy pretrial detentions, that give lie to the notion that our justice system runs on due process and just punishment. Facing no criminal charges,a witness should not, by law, be punitively imprisoned for refusal to comply. Yet thats exactly how resisting a grand jury can play out.

Grand-jury resisters are jailed for contempt on the explicit grounds of coercion: If they agree to talk, theyre released; or if it can be evidenced that they will never talk and the coercive grounds for imprisonment are undermined, the jailing is shown to be purely punitive, and a judge can be compelled to order their release.

While the federal grand jury purports to be a simple mechanism for investigating criminal offenses, civil rights attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen, who is representing Manning in her effort to quash the subpoena, told the Intercept, it can be and historically has been used by prosecutors to gather intelligence to which they are not entitled, for example about lawful and constitutionally protected political activity.

Theres a grim irony, particularly in Mannings case, that the purported purpose of a federal grand jury is to act as a safeguard from the improper motivations of government. We need not support Assange personally to understand that his prosecution for publishing Mannings leaks would expose news organs who also published the documents like the Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times to the same liability. The precedent that could be set for state repression of journalism is beyond troubling.

Mannings challenge to the grand jury subpoena thus suggests that, as shown during her court martial, the whistleblower understands the monumental First Amendment issues at stake in the prosecution of those who would expose government wrongdoing.

Chelsea gave voluminous testimony during her court martial. She has stood by the truth of her prior statements, and there is no legitimate purpose to having her rehash them before a hostile grand jury, said Mannings support committee, ChelseaResists, in a statement. By employing these tactics against her, the government is using a roundabout method to further punish Chelsea for her past actions, adding to the seven years of trauma, imprisonment and torture she has already endured.

The fact that it is Manning who must once again bear of the weight of the government against her, and risk more jail time, is a stinging injustice for an activist who has already endured so much for exposing vital and damning truths.

Read the rest here:
Why Chelsea Manning Is Fighting Her Grand Jury Subpoena

By Rachel Weiner and Ellen Nakashima | Washington Post

Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the investigation of Julian Assange, officials said, one of several indicators that prosecutors remain interested in WikiLeaks publication of diplomatic cables and military war logs in 2010.

Prosecutors in Virginia have been pursuing a case based on conduct that predates WikiLeaks publication of hacked emails during the 2016 presidential campaign, and its not clear investigators are interested in that activity. Officials discussed the investigation of Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury process.

Manning, whose subpoena was first reported by the New York Times, is a former Army private who served seven years in a military prison for passing secret State Department cables and military documents to WikiLeaks before receiving a commutation from President Barack Obama.

Mannings attorneys have filed a motion to quash the subpoena.

I object strenuously to this subpoena, and to the grand jury process in general, Manning said in a statement. Weve seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice.

The subpoena was signed last month by Gordon Kromberg, a national security prosecutor on the Assange case. Kromberg last month persuaded a judge to leave sealed an indictment against Assange despite its inadvertent exposure in an unrelated court filing last year.

Under Obama, Justice Department officials had decided not to pursue charges against Assange and WikiLeaks after concluding that to do so could set a precedent that paved the way for prosecuting news organizations for publishing classified information. But the case got a fresh look under President Donald Trump.

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges. Theres nothing else that would make sense, he said.

The heart of the controversy is, theres never been a successful prosecution for publishing classified information, Vladeck said. There has always been the specter of a First Amendment defense.

Peter Zeidenberg, a national security defense attorney, said he cannot see grounds for Manning to refuse the subpoena. Shes already been prosecuted, shes been convicted, she served a sentence, he said. She has no Fifth Amendment privilege over self-incrimination. If she doesnt testify than shell be held in contempt.

Manning appears to be the latest individual subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating Assange in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Last July, computer expert David House, who befriended Manning in 2010 at a hacker space in Boston he founded, testified for 90 minutes before the grand jury. In an interview, House said he met the WikiLeaks founder in January 2011 while Assange was under house arrest at Ellingham Hall, a manor house 120 miles northeast of London. Assange was fighting an extradition request by Sweden, where he faced an inquiry into allegations of sexual assault.

Assange asked House to help run political operations for WikiLeaks in the United States. Specifically, he wanted me to help achieve favorable press for Chelsea Manning, he said.

House, who testified in exchange for immunity, said the grand jury was interested in his relationship with Assange. They wanted full insight into WikiLeaks, what its goals were and why I was associated with it, he said. They wanted explanations of why certain things occurred and how they occurred. . . . It was all related to disclosures around the war logs.

The grand jury seemed interested in whether Assange had solicited Manning to hack on WikiLeaks behalf, but did not press very hard on that, he said. He was not asked about WikiLeaks 2016 release of Democratic emails, which U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed were hacked by Russians. Nor did he have personal knowledge of that, he said.

He was never told what charges prosecutors were contemplating.

House said his last contact with Assange was in 2013 and his last contact with WikiLeaks was in 2015.

House said he fears retribution for being associated with WikiLeaks and Manning in 2010 and does not believe the U.S. prosecution is warranted.

This is not an investigation borne out of a concern for national security, he said. It is an investigation borne out of retribution and revenge against Mr. Assange over the [2010] leak that he precipitated, and how this leak impacted the careers of politicians in Washington, D.C.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a onetime WikiLeaks spokesman who has grown estranged from Assange, said in an interview he was contacted by the German federal police in October 2017 and told that U.S. authorities wished to talk to him about the Manning-Julian connection. He also received a March 2018 letter repeating the request from then-U. S. Attorney in the Eastern District, Dana Boente.

He said the German police told him the FBI was interested in what possible contact possible coordination occurred between Assange and Manning, he said. The Americans appeared to be interested in possible solicitation by Assange of Manning, he said.

Domscheit-Berg told the German police he was not interested in speaking to the FBI.

Read the original here:
Chelsea Manning called to testify in Assange probe

Prosecutors in Virginia have been pursuing a case based on conduct that predates WikiLeaks' publication of hacked emails during the 2016 presidential campaign, and it's not clear investigators are interested in that activity. Officials discussed the investigation of Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury process.

Manning, whose subpoena was first reported by the New York Times, is a former Army private who served seven years in a military prison for passing secret State Department cables and military documents to WikiLeaks before receiving a commutation from President Barack Obama.

Manning's attorneys have filed a motion to quash the subpoena.

"I object strenuously to this subpoena, and to the grand jury process in general," Manning said in a statement. "We've seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice."

The subpoena was signed last month by Gordon Kromberg, a national security prosecutor on the Assange case. Kromberg last month persuaded a judge to leave sealed an indictment against Assange despite its inadvertent exposure in an unrelated court filing last year.

Under Obama, Justice Department officials had decided not to pursue charges against Assange and WikiLeaks after concluding that to do so could set a precedent that paved the way for prosecuting news organizations for publishing classified information. But the case got a fresh look under President Donald Trump.

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges. "There's nothing else that would make sense," he said.

"The heart of the controversy is, there's never been a successful prosecution" for publishing classified information, Vladeck said. "There has always been the specter of a First Amendment defense."

Peter Zeidenberg, a national security defense attorney, said he cannot see grounds for Manning to refuse the subpoena. "She's already been prosecuted, she's been convicted, she served a sentence," he said. "She has no Fifth Amendment privilege over self-incrimination. If she doesn't testify then she'll be held in contempt."

Manning appears to be the latest individual subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating Assange in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Last July, computer expert David House, who befriended Manning in 2010 at a hacker space in Boston he founded, testified for 90 minutes before the grand jury. In an interview, House said he met the WikiLeaks founder in January 2011 while Assange was under house arrest at Ellingham Hall, a manor house 120 miles northeast of London. Assange was fighting an extradition request by Sweden, where he faced an inquiry into allegations of sexual assault.

Assange asked House to help run political operations for WikiLeaks in the United States. "Specifically, he wanted me to help achieve favorable press for Chelsea Manning," he said.

House, who testified in exchange for immunity, said the grand jury was interested in his relationship with Assange. "They wanted full insight into WikiLeaks, what its goals were and why I was associated with it," he said. "They wanted explanations of why certain things occurred and how they occurred. . . . It was all related to disclosures around the war logs."

The grand jury seemed interested in whether Assange had solicited Manning to hack on WikiLeaks' behalf, but did not press "very hard" on that, he said. During her trial, Manning testified that she acted on her own to send documents to WikiLeaks and no one associated with WikiLeaks pressured her into giving more information.

He was not asked about WikiLeaks' 2016 release of Democratic emails, which U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed were hacked by Russians. Nor did he have personal knowledge of that, he said.

He was never told what charges prosecutors were contemplating.

House said his last contact with Assange was in 2013 and his last contact with WikiLeaks was in 2015.

House said he fears retribution for being associated with WikiLeaks and Manning in 2010 and does not believe the U.S. prosecution is warranted.

"This is not an investigation borne out of a concern for national security," he said. "It is an investigation borne out of retribution and revenge against Mr. Assange over the [2010] leak that he precipitated, and how this leak impacted the careers of politicians in Washington, D.C."

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a one-time WikiLeaks spokesman who has grown estranged from Assange, said in an interview he was contacted by the German federal police in October 2017 and told that U.S. authorities wished to talk to him "about the Manning-Julian connection." He also received a March 2018 letter repeating the request from then-U. S. Attorney in the Eastern District, Dana Boente.

He said the German police told him the FBI was interested in "what possible contact - possible coordination'' occurred between Assange and Manning, he said. The Americans appeared to be interested in "possible solicitation" by Assange of Manning, he said.

Domscheit-Berg told the German police he was not interested in speaking to the FBI.

This article was written by Ellen Nakashima and Rachel Weiner, reporters for The Washington Post.

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Chelsea Manning subpoenaed to testify before grand jury in ...

Activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, though the summons makes no mention of what she will be questioned about.

The former Army intelligence analyst, convicted in 2013 of leaking military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, has stated she will fight the subpoena. Her legal team is expected to file a motion to quash on Friday morning on constitutional grounds.

Given what is going on, I am opposing this, she told The New York Times.

I want to be very forthright I have been subpoenaed. I dont know the parameters of the subpoena apart from that I am expected to appear. I dont know what Im going to be asked.

Recently, prosecutors inadvertently revealed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been formally charged under seal in the Eastern District of Virginia, the same district in which Mannings subpoena was issued. She has not stated whether she will cooperate should her motion fail.

US attorney for the Eastern District, Gordon D Kromberg, who successfully argued that the charges levelled against Julian Assange remain secret despite the inadvertent revelation, told her lawyers only that the subpoena was in relation to her past statements.

Its disappointing but not surprising that the government is continuing to pursue criminal charges against Julian Assange, apparently for his role in uncovering and providing the public truthful information about matters of great public interest, said Barry Pollack, a lawyer on Assanges legal team.

Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has lived in political exile since 2012. Former President Obama commuted, not pardoned, Mannings sentence in 2017, with Manning having served less than four years of her original 35-year sentence.

Critics have denounced the Trump administrations newly-revealed pursuit of charges against Assange after his predecessor opted not to tread into murky waters regarding press freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

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Chelsea Manning subpoenaed by grand jury, likely over past ...