Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, plans to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge this week as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department.

 This deal is expected to allow him to go free after spending five years in a British prison, according to court documents. Assange's journey has been marked by controversy, legal battles, and his pivotal role in one of the most significant leaks of classified information in history.

WikiLeaks was established in late 2006 as an online disclosure portal for whistleblowers. Created by Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist and journalist, WikiLeaks has been described as an "open-source, democratic intelligence agency." The platform quickly became a haven for whistleblowers aiming to expose governmental and corporate misconduct.

Supreme Court Overturns Bump Stocks Ban - USA Herald

gov.uscourts.nmid.6474.3.0_1.pdf (courtlistener.com)

gov.uscourts.nmid.6474.1.0.pdf (courtlistener.com)

The Charges Against Assange

Assange has been charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, according to the court documents. This charge was brought by "criminal information," which typically indicates a plea deal. 

The charges stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history, occurring during Barack Obama's first presidential term.

One of WikiLeaks's core security concepts was that it did not know the identities of its sources. According to a New York Times article, the U.S. government has been trying to prove since 2010 that Assange was not merely a passive recipient of materials from Chelsea Manning.

 The charges allege that Assange encouraged or helped Manning to extract the files. Despite this, no files or communications on Manning’s computer indicated a conspiracy, and Manning has always maintained that she had anonymous communications with someone at WikiLeaks but could not confirm it was Assange.

Assange also published hacked emails sent to WikiLeaks from the Democratic National Committee and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server system

Clinton’s team destroyed thousands of government emails from this unsanctioned system, some of which were later identified as classified. The source of the leak has never been publicly determined.

Chelsea Manning's Role

The government claims that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst previously known as Bradley Edward Manning.

 Manning disclosed tens of thousands of activity reports about the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of reports about the war in Iraq, State Department cables, and assessment briefs of Guantanamo Bay detainees using the WikiLeaks platform.

In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison, but her sentence was commuted by Obama in 2017.

In February 2019, Manning received a subpoena to testify in a U.S. government case against Assange. She refused, citing that she had already provided all the information she had during her 2013 court martial. 

Manning was found in contempt of court and jailed in Alexandria, Virginia, with her release contingent on her testifying or the grand jury concluding its work.

After the grand jury's term expired, Manning was released but soon served with a new subpoena. When she again refused to testify, the court ordered her return to jail, imposing fines for each day she remained non-compliant. 

On March 12, 2020, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga found that the grand jury’s business had concluded and ordered Manning's release. Supporters launched crowdfunding campaigns to help pay her fines and post-incarceration living expenses, raising substantial funds in a short period.

The Assange Plea Deal

Assange is expected to plead guilty and has already returned to Australia. Court documents revealing Assange's plea deal were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in a British prison, which would allow him to return to Australia, his birthplace.

Assange has spent five years in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London and previously spent seven years in self-exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. His asylum was withdrawn, and he was forcibly removed from the embassy and arrested in April 2019. Since then, he has been imprisoned in London without being convicted of a crime.

The Extradition Battle

Assange has been fighting extradition to the U.S. for more than a decade. In March, the High Court in London allowed him a full hearing on his appeal as he sought assurances that he could rely on the First Amendment during a trial in the United States. In May, two High Court judges permitted a full hearing on whether Assange would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national. A hearing on Assange's free speech rights was scheduled for July 9-10, prompting the U.S. to offer a plea deal.

Julian Assange’s impending guilty plea marks a significant moment in the ongoing saga of WikiLeaks and its founder. The case continues to stir debates on issues of the First Amendment, transparency, national security, and the role of whistleblowers in modern society.