Assange Conviction Would Be Death Blow To Journalism

Julian Assange is still facing extradition and charges of violating the Espionage Act for exposing the US military’s war crimes. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Julian Assange is still facing extradition and charges of violating the Espionage Act for exposing the US military's war crimes. You know, this story has always bothered me so badly because, you know, the people love to, he's a criminal. He did these terrible things. He raped a girl, which proved to be completely nonsense.

Yeah.

That was years ago and they said no. No, he didn't. As a matter of fact, it was, that was created by the spook industry. The spook industry created that story to discredit him. Pick this up and how dangerous the Espionage Act is, and how if they use it against him, we're in big trouble.

Yeah. We are. Listen, you know, people love him or hate him. It doesn't matter your personal feelings about him at all. What we're talking about here is journalism itself at risk. And Julian Assange is, is currently facing extradition to the United States. They want to charge him under the Espionage Act, which could put him in prison forever until he, till he dies. And the Espionage Act is not supposed to be for whistleblowers exposing problems with our own US military.

But that's a hundred percent of what they're doing with it.

Yes, it is. And that's, that's what we're hearing from past whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg.

Yeah.

Has now had to come out. Noam Chomsky is coming out and they are sounding the alarm bells about what could happen, should Assange come over here and be convicted, because that is going to be the death blow for what's left of journalism in this country.

Howard Zinn was talking about this his entire career. He said, this is getting ready to happen. He even described what the legislation would look like. It looked like the Espionage Act. Now let's talk about these horrible things he did. First, he, he disclosed that the feds were spying on US citizens. That's one of the bad things he did. The other thing he did is he was the first to disclose that, that dozens of purely dirty tricks by the US were being pulled off all around the globe and he pointed 'em out. He said, this is what happened in this country. This is what happened in this country. Here are the people that were responsible. That's another terrible thing he did. The other thing he did is he was the first to disclose the remarkable impact that the feds were having on controlling the media. You know, so, so the media attacked him. They didn't like that. That, that's terrible. How dare you do that. He was first to disclose the indiscriminate use of drone bombs that were killing civilians.

Yeah.

God, what a criminal he is. You know, let's put him in prison. He was the first to disclose the details about George Bush and Dick Cheney and how they lied and hustled us into the Iraq War. Sounds like a criminal to me, doesn't he? I can't even get my arms around it. And Biden comes out and says, you know, one of the first thing he, you know, Biden's big thing, this is a quote from him. Our freedom is dependent on free un, unregulated information flowing through the press. Right?

Yeah. And, and they still, they will not drop the charges. They want him to come and stand trial. And the charges were actually brought by the Trump administration. The Trump DOJ after, you know, Trump had kind of made it seem like he wasn't gonna do anything. You know, we were gonna forgive him or whatever. And then nope, they move forward full steam ahead. Biden has not reversed that course at all. And again, we are not talking about this man releasing, oh, here's all these secrets the United States has.

These are the things I'm talking, this is what he released.

Exactly. He's, he's talking about here are some war crimes that we've committed.

Yeah.

Here are some other atrocities that our government is committing by manipulating the media.

Yeah.