A massive dump of internal Wikileaks documents have made their way into the hands of the media recently and some of the revelations have been intriguing. (Just as an aside, how ironic is it that the organization who made radical transparency a thing is getting beaten up over leaks?) Some of the most notable revelations have concerned their founder, Julian Assange. On Monday we learned that a plan had been put in place to attempt to get Assange safely out of the Ecuadorian embassy and into Russia, but that scheme fell through. As it turns out, however, Russia was involved with more hijinks than just that. Dating back to 2017, Ecuador attempted to name Assange a special diplomatic representative to Russia, have Britain recognize him as such and allow him to fly out to take up an office in Moscow. (Reuters)

Ecuador in 2017 gave Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a diplomatic post in Russia but rescinded it after Britain refused to give him diplomatic immunity, according to an Ecuadorean government document seen by Reuters.

The aborted effort suggests Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had engaged Moscow to resolve the situation of Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy for six years to avoid arrest by British authorities on charges of skipping bail.

The incident was revealed in a letter by Ecuadors foreign ministry to a legislator who had asked for information about Ecuadors decision last year to grant Assange citizenship.

So Ecuador was attempting to use whats called a special designation to establish Assange as a diplomat. This is similar to the (mostly unofficial) distinction that the United States makes when presidents appoint ambassadors, splitting them between political appointees and career diplomats. Presumably, the important posts where actual diplomacy is likely to be required call for experienced personnel. Other countries without too many tricky negotiations expected might just receive an ambassador who donated a lot of money to the presidents party.

In the same fashion, in addition to career diplomats, the Ecuadorian president is allowed to appoint a fixed number of political allies to plum positions. He attempted to use one of those slots for Assange just to get him out of their hair, but the Brits refused to recognize him as a lettered diplomat, once again squashing the plan.

The curious point here is that the Russians would have to be on board with each of the attempted plans before Ecuador wasted any time or energy in trying the scheme. Why has Russia been so interested in Assange and what benefit did they see in locking him away in their country? You can understand why they would want Snowden. He not only had a laptop full of secrets to bargain away, but experience inside the intelligence community as well. We may never know how much damage was done to American security interests when Snowden flew the coup.

But Assange? Id been under the impression that Wikileaks was basically just a firehose and they dumped everything they received online not too long after they received it. How many secrets could Assange have locked up in his head to make if worth the headache of allowing him in and establishing him as a permanent resident of Russia? They might have been considering it just to be another pain in the backside to the United States I suppose. Or, conversely, he might have been a potential bargaining chip they could trade away to us if we wound up with something (or someone) they wanted back very badly.

Stay tuned. The Associated Press is currently pouring through literally thousands of Wikileaks internal emails and documents. Who knows what they might find next?

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Julian Assange: International diplomat? - hotair.com

Enlarge / Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, gestures from the balcony of Ecuador's embassy in London.

Last year, Ecuador attempted to deputize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as one of its own diplomats and send him to Russia, according to a Friday report by Reuters.

Citing an "Ecuadorian government document," which the news agency did not publish, Assange apparently was briefly granted a "special designation" to act as one of its diplomats, a privilege normally granted to the president for political allies. However, that status was then withdrawn when the United Kingdom objected.

The Associated Press reported earlier in the week that newly-leaked documents showed that Assange sought a Russian visa back in 2010. WikiLeaks has vehemently denied that Assange did so.

On Friday evening, neither WikiLeaks nor the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry immediately responded to Ars request for comment via Twitter.However, earlier in the day, WikiLeaks categorically denied that Assanges proposed diplomatic status had anything to do with Russia.

On Friday, also prior to the Reuters report, the Russian Embassy in London denied being involved with trying to get Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy.

"The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russias participation in ending Mr Assanges stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador," it wrote.

The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to Ars request for comment late Friday evening.

The Reuters report comes a day after Paola Vintimilla, a member of the Ecuadorian parliament, started raising public questions about Julian Assanges status inside the countrys London embassy and about the citizenship Assange was granted last year.

Vintimillia said at a press conference (Spanish) in Quito on Thursday that Assanges citizenship should be rescinded.She also said that it is not clear precisely what legal status Assange has, as he appears to have withdrawn his asylum claim as of December 4, 2017, just eight days prior to his being granted citizenship.

"At this moment, what is Assanges status?" she said. "Hes an Ecuadorian living in the London embassy and were paying for this?"

Vintimilla also noted that Assanges naturalization documents "mysteriously" lack the signature of then-Foreign Minister Mara Espinosa.

As Reuters reported, the United Kingdoms Foreign and Commonwealth Office told Ecuador on December 21, 2017 that it would not accept Assange as a diplomat. Had the UK accepted his diplomatic status, he likely would have been allowed to leave the embassy and travel to Moscow.

Once Ecuador learned of the UKs perspective on Assanges status, the country abandoned the plan to make him a diplomat.

Were Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has lived since 2012, he would almost certainly be arrested by British authorities. Assange has said he is concerned that he would be extradited to the United States.

In July 2016, WikiLeaks published 20,000 internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, a hack that likely originated from Russia.

"We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in a January 7, 2017 report. "Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries."

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Ecuador wanted to make Julian Assange a diplomat and send him ...

Russian diplomats have secretly discussed extracting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and escorting him out of the U.K. and beyond the reach of a potential U.S. extradition request, The Guardian reported Friday.

Citing four sources, The Guardian said Russians held secret talks in London last year with people close to the Australian-born WikiLeaks publisher on the subject of potentially facilitating his safe exit from the embassy, his residence since 2012.

One tentative plan involved smuggling Mr. Assange out of the embassy in a diplomatic vehicle on Christmas Eve and transporting him to another country, possibly Russia, where he stood a lesser risk of being extradited to the U.S. and tried on charges related to his WikiLeaks website, The Guardian reported.

Another plan considered involved shipping Mr. Assange on a boat to Ecuador, the newspaper reported.

It is false that giving Julian Assange diplomatic status is news, WikiLeaks responded through its Twitter account Friday. It has been widely discussed for almost a year by Ecuador and the international bar and has nothing, whatsover [sic], to do with Russia.

Mr. Assange, 47, was granted asylum by Ecuador within weeks of seeking refuge in its London embassy more than six years ago, though an outstanding arrest warrant issued by U.K. authorities and the related risk of being extradited abroad have kept him from exiting ever since.

Ecuador naturalized Mr. Assange in late 2017, but a subsequent attempt to grant him diplomatic status days later was quickly quashed by U.K. authorities.

According to The Guardian, the aborted Christmas Eve escape plan involved utilizing the diplomatic protection Mr. Assange would have been granted had the request been accepted. Ecuador could have given Mr. Assange diplomatic documents, and he could have then been picked up from the embassy by Russians and taken away in diplomatic vehicle, the report said.

The plan was ultimately deemed too risky and aborted, the report said.

Reacting to the report through its Twitter account, the Russian embassy in London called the story another example of disinformation and fake news from the British media.

Mr. Assange sought refuge from Ecuador amid being sought for questioning by Swedish prosecutors investigating allegations of sexual assault. Sweden dropped the probe in 2017, but a U.K. judge subsequently ruled that Mr. Assange breached related bail conditions by entering the embassy and should be arrested upon exiting.

WikiLeaks has published throngs of classified U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence community documents during the past decade, including Democratic Party documents in 2016 allegedly sourced by Russian state-sponsored hackers, according to U.S. federal intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Mr. Assange has not been charged publicly by U.S. prosecutors, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions previously called his arrest a priority.

Original post:
Russia plotted sneaking Julian Assange out of Ecuadorian ...

Assange photographed on the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017.

By Jay Shaw Baker/NurPhoto/Getty Images.

The bizarre web that links Julian Assange and WikiLeaks with Roger Stone and Robert Muellers Russia investigation gained another strand on Friday, when The Guardian reported that Russian diplomats held covert talks in London to devise a plan to spring Assange from his hidey-hole in the Ecuadorian embassy. Provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve 2017, the operation involved ensconcing the WikiLeaks founder in a diplomatic vehicle and likely whisking him off to Russia. According to four sources, the plan was backed by the Kremlin, though it was ultimately deemed too risky and abandoned at the last minute.

Though details are hazy, the paper reports that Fidel Narvez, who recently served as Ecuadors London consul and has a close relationship with Assange, was the point of contact with Moscow. Narvez has denied being involved in any such discussions, while Russias embassy in London (whose response to the Salisbury Novichok poisoning included posting a picture of Pierce Brosnan with the caption: Does Russias dialing code 007 make James Bond a Russian spy?) tweeted Friday that the story was simply another example of disinformation and fake news from the British media.

Assange arrived at the embassy disguised as a motorcycle courier in June 2012 and sought political asylum days after he had lost a battle against extradition to Sweden, where two women had accused him of rape. Both cases were eventually dropped, but Assange is still liable for breaching the conditions of his bail. He has since remained penned-up in the embassy, appearing in public only to deliver speeches from a Romeo and Juliet-style balcony affixed to his quarters. In private, though, he has received a roster of guests, from Brexiteer Nigel Farage (who, asked by BuzzFeed about the reason for the visit, said he couldnt remember what he had been doing in the building) to, during the summer of 2016, several Russians, including some senior figures from the Kremlin-owned network RT, with whom he signed a deal for The Julian Assange Show back in 2011.

Assange continued his work for WikiLeaks until his Internet access was severed in March. Which means he was still at the helm of the site when it published hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials months before the 2016 election. The move was received enthusiastically by Donald Trump (I love WikiLeaks, he crowed during an October 2016 rally), but just how the site got hold of the cache of e-mails has become a key question in Muellers investigation into whether or not Russia colluded with the Trump campaign. Over the course of the probe, WikiLeaks has popped up in connection with Robert Mercer-backed firm Cambridge Analyticathough the firms C.E.O. denied contact with the Web site, one of its directors, Brittany Kaiser, visited Assange in February last year, reportedly telling friends it was to discuss the U.S. election.

WikiLeaks has also been mentioned in connection with political trickster Roger Stone, who may have known about the leaked D.N.C. e-mails before they were published (an allegation he has denied), and who maintained a dialogue both with the site and with Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0. Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg said he was asked about Stones ties to WikiLeaks when he appeared before a grand jury this past spring. The fact that Roger hasnt been called in and the special counsel continues to ask questions about Rogers possible activities during the election shows that at the very least hes a subject, he replied. When Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives in July, he flagged a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, who swapped messages with Guccifer 2.0. Stone has admitted that he is probably that person.

WikiLeaks, and Russia being mentioned in the same breath is one thing. But if Russian officials were indeed involved in a plan to spring Assange and spirit him away to the motherlanda plan that as of yet has no obvious motivationMueller may have hit on a fresh avenue to explore that links them concretely.

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Did Russia Try to Rescue Julian Assange? | Vanity Fair

This is a red level emergency.

Journalist and Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, is now in failing health and has been a prisoner in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for six years even though there is absolutely no legitimate legal ground for his prosecution.

Sign and spread this petition so it can reach President Donald J. Trump to fully and unconditionally pardon Julian Assange in the interests of both justice and mercy.

Additionally, the Department of Justice is on record admitting that prosecuting Assange would also expose all American journalists and news outlets to similar criminal jeopardy.

We are calling on and asking President Trump to take a stand against the establishment medias and globalists assault on liberty and freedom of speech.

Read, sign, and share the full petition here.

Also:

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Petition to Trump: Pardon Julian Assange - infowars.com

The mother of Julian Assange claims murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the person behind the leaked DNC emails, not Russia.

In a tweet sent Thursday, Mrs. Christine Assange slammed the media for failing to adequately report on the corruption within the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election.

In the tweet, Mrs. Assange claims WikiLeaks release of the DNC emails helped expose Hillary Clintons numerous misdeeds, including the rigging of the 2016 primaries against Bernie Sanders. The release of the emails, she claims, put a target on her sons back.

Its the duty of media to inform citizens about corruption, she began.

A DNC Bernie supporter [Seth Rich] disgruntledwith rigging leaked docs proving corruption. What should Wikileaks should have done? Hold on to them till after the election to advantage Hillary?

You are shooting the messenger!

Mrs. Assange is referring to the fact that Seth Rich, a Bernie supporter, was likely frustrated with the blatant primary rigging against Bernie Sanders in 2016.

WikiLeaks has repeatedly denied that Russian hackers had anything to do with the leaked Clinton and Podesta emails.

In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2016, Wikileaks envoy Craig Murray told the newspaper that Seth Rich was frustrated with the DNC rigging the Democratic primaries against Sanders and decided to take matters into his own hands and leak the emails.

Neither of the leaks came from the Russians,Murray said. The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.

The mass censorship of independent media is exploding. Our content is being silenced on social media and demonetized by mega-corporations who want to eliminate competition. But you can help us in this fight. Your freedom matters. Your voice matters. You have the power to fight those who seek to silence us.

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Julian Assange's Mother: Seth Rich Was DNC Leaker - Your News ...