Reading the blog it often comes across as a terrifying tale of Orwellian aggressive state power. Kudos to Craig and all those committed and brave enough to stick with it.<p>It is an internationally important trial for news journalists everywhere. Shame on the so-called mainstream media for completely, wilfully, ignoring the proceedings.
I can absolutely see Netflix making a smash hit docudrama about this trial. I'm not being facetious; miscarriages of justice really do capture the public's imagination, if they're able to hear the story told in an interesting way. Add in to the fact that this is a political thriller, and it's a recipe for success.<p>And you 100% know Assange will have 0 qualms with selling the rights, and extensive phone calls from prison.
This is an utter farce of a trial.<p>How any UK or US politician can stand up now, and call for sanctions against Russia or China or Iran .. beggars belief.<p>These are the sorts of charades we have been programmed to <i>despise</i> when we see it in our 'enemies' societies, when it happens - but when we are doing it, there is some moral stance that makes it acceptable.<p>The rule of law is being eroded right before our eyes.<p>Oh yeah. I forgot about what was done to Habeus Corpus. We are really, really fucked.
For anybody who will again try to argue that he helped hacking and therefore all mistreatment of him is excusable, considering the actual US charges, apparently:<p>"just one of the 18 charges relate to computer intrusion and it carries just 5 years' jail, compared to the 175 years Assange faces if the maximum sentence was awarded."<p>The case is then clearly about 170 years worth of charges, not about hacking (the rest 5 years). And these charges are all the "Espionage Act" charges for a non-US person doing obviously a journalistic work outside of the US.<p>Independently of that, in the article is, among other topics, a described testimony about the chronology of how the unredacted documents became public and a reference to the article:<p><a href="https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/21/trump-schwartz-grenell-wikileaks-extradition-death-penalty/" rel="nofollow">https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/21/trump-schwartz-grenell-wi...</a><p>Which (a bit chaotically) describes the testimony of Cassandra Fairbanks about what she knows happened in or around White House related to Assange. Interestingly:<p>"The prosecution did not object to the truth of the matter asserted — that Trump officials were directly involved in plans against Assange."
Without making any judgment on the merits of the Assange case and the proceedings, one fact has become increasingly clear to me. Assange has tried to play politics and has been burned. He had a very clear bias in what he leaked and the political systems are now flexing their might to make an example of him. I disagree with this process, it does not feel like any sort of "justice". I also strongly disagree with Assange's politics and how he aimed to manipulate the American political system with the help of powerful enemy states. Ultimately, he dabbled in state secrets and was a willing puppet for Russia and other states. Regardless of the fairness of it, he had to imagine he was playing with fire and may get burned. You simply don't delve into promoting one a political agenda, publicly, with the help of an enemy state and not expect some sort of blowback.