Amy Goodman
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WikiLeaks Lawyer Michael Ratner On the Impact of Bradley Manning's Guilty Plea for Julian Assange
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March 1, 2013
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1:51Now PlayingWatch the entire interview with Michael Ratner on Democracy Now! at We speak with a WikiLeaks attorney Michael Ratner about the implications of Bradley Manning's military trial on the group's founder, Julian Assange. Ratner attended Manning's pretrial hearing Thursday when he pled guilty to being the source behind the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. Also attending the hearing were government prosecutors involved in the secret grand jury investigating WikiLeaks, Ratner says.
MICHAEL RATNER: I would say that Bradley Manning's testimony put WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the same place that The New York Times would be or The Guardian, which is to say he gave documents or uploaded them to a website that is the equivalent of—you know, with The New York Times getting information about warrantless wiretapping from someone in the U.S. National Security Agency. So I think, in that sense, it tells us that the U.S. should get off his back, that Julian Assange should be getting the support of The New York Times and The Guardian and Der Spiegel, which used all of these—which used all of these documents. So I think it's actually, in that sense, helpful to Julian Assange. On the other hand, there were two people who were identified to me as members—as lawyers on the grand jury that's sitting in—that's sitting in Virginia. Two of the prosecuting attorneys were there in the court.
AMY GOODMAN: Yesterday, at the pretrial hearing of Bradley Manning.
MICHAEL RATNER: Yes, yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So they're there, and you're there, Assange's attorney.
MICHAEL RATNER: They're there, and I'm there. I didn't have a chance to meet them, because they don't come out and mix with the rest of us. They're on the government's side with—surrounded by camouflaged people. But they were there. And so, that tells us that that grand jury is still active and going on, and that they are still after Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. When I say "they," the U.S. government. But for some reason, they're thinking they can distinguish that from The New York Times and The Guardian. I don't think they can. And I think it's—you know, to me, it's outrageous that The New York Times and The Guardian have not supported one of the people they worked with in revealing these documents.
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