The so-called “liberal” media is ecstatic over the arrest and potential extradition of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange.
Here’s MSNBC‘s resident deep state agent Malcolm Nance:
The security state agents for NBC/MSNBC cheering the Trump administration for arresting Assange because they're aut… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019
NBC News made the decision to hire a team of former military & intelligence officials to "report" & "analyze" the n… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been taken to Westminster Magistrates Court after his arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Photos of the whistleblower defiantly gesturing in a police van have emerged in the media.
Journalist flocked to the white police van carrying the whistleblower into the courthouse. With his hair tied back and sporting a full-length white beard, Assange offered cameras a hardy thumbs up with a wink.
Assange stepped into the courtroom wearing a dark polo shirt and quietly read his Gore Vidal book while he waited for his lawyers to arrive.
Earlier, Metropolitan Police said in a statement that they arrested Assange on a warrant issued by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court. The police were“invited into the embassy by the Ambassador,” it said.
Julian Assange is a pioneering whistleblower in the digital-age, speaking truth to power like no one before him managed on such a significant scale. As he sits in a London jail cell, here’s why we should be grateful for his work.
By setting up the international non-profit organization WikiLeaksin Iceland in 2006, Assange irrevocably shifted the balance of power in the online era.
From humble beginnings as a master coder and hacker, caught by Australian authorities in 1995 but escaping a prison term, to the foremost publisher of sensitive, embarrassing and potentially dangerous material for the world to see, Assange’s storied career as a publisher and whistleblower has captured headlines, and the global public’s attention for years.
RT takes a look back at the key moments in Assange’s career that remind us why the world owes him such a debt of gratitude.
In 2007, WikiLeaks published emails exposing the manuals for Camp Delta, a controversial US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which was the focal point for the US war on terror and the final destination for those captured as part of its extraordinary rendition campaign.
The following year the whistleblowing site posted emails from vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo email account, again exposing the newfound weakness of the political class in the digital age.
‘Collateral murder’
In a move that would reverberate online and across the world for years, in April 2010 WikiLeaks published footage of US forces summarily executing 18 civilians from an Apache attack helicopter in Iraq. It was an almost unheard of revelation of the brutality of war and the low price of human life in modern conflict.
2010 was a very busy year for Assange as in July WikiLeaks published more than 90,000 classified documents and diplomatic cables relating to the Afghanistan war.
Later, in October 2010, the organization published a raft of classified documents from the Iraq War. The logs were referred to as “the largest leak of classified documents in its history” by the US Department of Defense, according to the BBC. WikiLeaks followed that up in November by publishing diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world.
The Guantánamo Files and Spy Files
In April 2011, WikiLeaks published classified US military documents detailing the behavior and treatment of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. This leak would be followed, once again, by a vast trove (250 million) of US diplomatic cables.
Throughout this sequence of widely-praised leaks, Assange invited a global audience behind the curtain of international diplomacy and warfare to expose the hidden truths of global power dynamics in a way which would forever change the power structure and landscape, affording a platform to analysts like Chelsea Manning to expose potential war crimes and misdeeds by the US military at large.
Assange and WikiLeaks would also help fellow whistleblowers like Edward Snowden to seek refuge from predatory US authorities, providing aid and comfort to those who risked everything in the pursuit of truth, exposing some of the most egregious mass surveillance programs the world has ever known.
DNC leak
As the 2016 US presidential election loomed, WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee, which exposed the preferential treatment shown to then-candidate for president Hillary Clinton over her competitor Bernie Sandersin the Democratic primary. Assange boldly informed CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the release was indeed timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention.
In October that same year, WikiLeaks began publishing emails from Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, which shed light on the inner workings of the Democratic nominee’s political machine.
These included excerpts from Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street, politically-motivated payments made to the Clinton Foundation, her consideration of choosing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates or his wife as a potential running mate, her desire to covertly intervene in Syria, her intention to ring-fence China with missile defense batteries if it did not curtail North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
Legacy
Following his arrest on the morning of April 11, 2019, Assange’s future remains unclear. He likely faces extradition to the US where it was inadvertently revealed that he has been charged under seal in a US federal court. Former Assange collaborator Chelsea Manning has been imprisoned for refusing to cooperate with the court in relation to the case.
Assange’s legal battle is only just beginning, it seems, but the international following he has forged will undoubtedly grant him a place in the pantheon of history’s champions of truth.
He remains a true digital pioneer, paving the way for so many to follow in his footsteps and expose the untold misdeeds of the powerful, be they political figures or entire militaries. Assange has defiantly shown what a powerful tool digital technology can be and how easily the dynamics of power can be shifted in the 21st century by those brave enough. Unfortunately, he also showed the consequences of wielding such power in the face of such overwhelming international and political opposition.
The conspiracy known as ‘Russiagate’ should have ended with the news that, after intense investigation, no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was found — but die-hard collusion truthers are finding it hard to move on.
Attorney General William Barr sent a four-page letter summarizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to Congress on March 24. Quoting the report directly Barr wrote that the investigation“did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” in 2016.
That unambiguous conclusion was reached with the help of 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts and forensic accountants, among other professionals. In pursuit of any evidence to prove Trump colluded with Moscow, Mueller issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.
But none of that was enough to satisfy or dent the resolve of the Russiagate true believers (on social media or in the mainstream media) who are still convinced that they were right all along and are coming up with new theories in a last-ditch effort to prove it.
‘Barr is lying for Trump!’
Following the letter, the first instinct of the Russiagaters was to cast Barr as the new villain. It was too early to turn on Mueller (who had been held up for two years as a Messiah-like figure who would save them from the Trump presidency).
“Barr is a Trump appointee!” they shouted on Twitter, suggesting that the AG lied or misconstrued the contents of Mueller’s report while he sat by and said nothing. Former Hillary Clinton adviser Adam Parkhomenko even accused Barr of engineering a“coverup” of Mueller’s real evidence.
This was followed by demands for the release of the report in its entirety, which is a fair request. Trump himself in the past has said he would have “no problem” with the full report being released, so time will tell whether he’ll stick to that position or not. Regardless, what the Russiagaters are expecting to find in the full report is a bit of a mystery, since we already know there was no evidence of collusion established by Mueller.
‘Mueller didn’t investigate the right things!’
Perhaps realizing that accusing Barr of spinning the report in Trump’s favor wasn’t going to cut it, collusion enthusiasts finally began to set their sights on Mueller himself. A piece in the New York Times noted the“sense of mourning” that had set in among“disappointed Mueller fans” who were now beginning to“rethink the pedestal they built for him.”
“Mueller’s scope was too narrow!” the former fans insisted, after pledging their hopes on his investigative skills for two years and hanging on every “bombshell” and “turning point” the media — including the Times — had offered them. Some were so disillusioned that they decided the whole thing must have been“a setup” from day one.
‘Forget Mueller, the evidence is in plain sight!’
Others maintained that Mueller (“a Republican!”) was simply ignoring all the “evidence” of collusion that was in “plain sight.”The “plain sight” narrative was boosted by the unrelenting Rep. Adam Schiff, who led the Democrats’ collusion charge and even claimed that he seen the evidence of collusion himself. Yet, on Tuesday, Schiff told CNN that the problem was an inability to establish proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” and promised that Congress would continue its own investigations of Trump to prove that he was “compromised” by Russia.
Some did stick by Mueller, however, insisting that they trust him and will accept whatever is in the report. Whether they will stand by that assessment if they are disappointed by the contents of the full report remains to be seen.
‘But what about *insert theory*?’
Then there were those who went back to basics and dug up all the old theories. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia Evelyn Farkas suggested that maybe Trump secretly owes buckets of money to Russians “close to Putin.”
What about that Trump Tower meeting? What about WikiLeaks? What about Trump saying nice things about Putin? Come on, there must be something they can catch him on.
Media madness
US media has taken two different approaches to the Mueller news. There are the ones who are eager to move on and forget Russiagate ever happened (no need to reflect on the role journalists played in hyping the conspiracy) — and there are those who are doubling down.
Preferring the ‘let’s all move on’ option, two CNN reporters penned an unintentionally funny article suggesting that the finding of no collusion was an opportunity to quickly “move past a dark period,” but worried that the president “isn’t prepared to let go.” One assumes they haven’t recently encountered any of the congressional Democrats who are insisting that investigations of Trump will continue indefinitely.
Question: let's say you've spent 2+ years ceaselessly hyping a Trump-Russia conspiracy on your top-rated news show. Mueller has just finished his probe by finding no conspiracy. If you're @Maddow, how much time do you then spend reporting on that result?
Coming as a surprise to no one, MSNBC’s chief Russiagate prophet Rachel Maddow is one who has opted to double down, barely acknowledging on her Monday night show that no collusion had been found and pouring ample skepticism on Barr’s letter. Poor, desperate Maddow was then unironically dubbed the “queen of collusion” in the Washington Post, which was hardly a beacon of reason and moderation over the last two years.
Anyway, best to stay tuned; who knows what new theories the Russiagate devotees will come up with next.
With the Mueller report finished and President Trump cleared of colluding with Russia, the spotlight is now on the FBI leadership that opened the investigation. RT’s Crosstalk guests think the agency has a lot to answer for.
After a two year media circus, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report cleared President Trump of colluding with Russia to rig the 2016 election, a conclusion that Trump says brings him “complete and total exoneration.”
However, constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitzargued that Mueller should have never been appointed in the first place. “It was a mistake to appoint a special counsel because there was no evidence of a crime,” Dershowitz said. Rather, he argued, Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was a knee-jerk reaction to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
Mueller’s probe was launched just over a week after Comey was unceremoniously fired in May 2017. Before then, the FBI had been conducting its own investigation into the supposed collusion. That investigation, Dershowitz continued, was based on lies.
A dossier of salacious gossip – gathered by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign – was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as evidence to authorize the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, even though Comey later admitted he knew the dossier was unverifiable.
“I think the FISA court was defrauded,” the lawyer told RT. “You can show information to the FISA court which isn’t particularly compelling, as long as you tell the court what the source is, and alert it to the… conflicts of interest. You cannot provide material to the court, claiming it’s credible, when you yourself know that it lacks credibility.”
Troublingly, former National Security Agency leader William Binney added,
Among Republicans, talk of investigating the FBI and Department of Justice has risen above a chatter in recent days. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told reporters on Monday that he will investigate the FBI’s alleged FISA abuse and subsequent investigation, an investigation that Trump called“an illegal takedown that failed.”
“What makes no sense to me is that all of the abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI – the unprofessional conduct, the shady behavior – nobody seems to think that’s much important. Well that’s going to change, I hope,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) gave Graham his blessing on Tuesday, saying the issue of whether the FBI conspired to hinder Trump’s election is “a legitimate question.”
“We’re headed that way,”presidential historian Doug Weadnoted.
CNN and the Democratic Party have been accused of trying to sabotage Bernie Sanders after the network masked the political affiliations of audience members who pelted the senator with questions during a town hall event.
The Vermont senator found himself bogged down in complicated policy issues – and apologies – after fielding questions from audience members whose political loyalties and possible ulterior motives were obscured by CNN. The eyebrow-raising oversight was first spotted by Paste Magazine, which accused CNN, in concert with the Democratic Party, of “stacking” the audience against Sanders by not being upfront about who was tasked with asking the senator questions.
For example, a young woman identified by CNN as a student at American University suggested that Sanders had turned a blind eye to his campaign’s alleged sexist behavior during the 2016 primaries, and asked what the democratic socialist would do to make women feel more included in his 2020 presidential bid. Curiously, the network failed to disclose that the student also happens to be an intern at a major DC lobbying firm – an odd coincidence considering her question was adapted from a Sanders-bashing talking point popular among corporate-friendly Democrats.
CNN was similarly tight-lipped about the backgrounds of other audience members selected to interrogate Sanders.
One audience member labeled as a “George Washington student” was later revealed to be an intern for a Democratic fundraising organization, the Katz Watson Group, and was previously a campaign fellow for ‘Hillary Clinton for America’.
Town hall moderator Wolf Blitzer introduced another audience member as a mother of two who is “active in the Maryland Democrat Party.” It turns out the innocuous mom was actually the chair of her county’s Democratic Central Committee.
CNN conceded that it should have been more transparent about its question-askers.
“Though we said at the beginning of the Town Hall that the audience was made up of Democrats and Independents, we should have more fully identified any political affiliations,” the network said in a statement.
Edward Hall, an economist and co-founder of the Occupy Wall Street movement, told RT that CNN’s deceptive identification practices were “par for the course” and part of a “long-running disease” in US politics, which uses in-fighting to protect corporate interests.
This isn’t the first time that CNN has given Sanders a raw deal. In one notable example, the network was taken to task for declaring Clinton the Democratic candidate even though, at the time, she lacked the required number of pledged delegates to clinch the nomination. Emails published by WikiLeaks famously revealed that CNN contributor Donna Brazilepassed town hall debate questions to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 primary against the Vermont lawmaker.
Fox host Tucker Carlson offered his take on CNN filming a surprise FBI raid on Roger Stone’s house, saying the channel has turned into the “PR arm” of Robert Mueller, “the single most powerful” – and unelected – man in the US.
In his latest monologue, the Fox anchor said it’s crucial to raise some questions before the arrest of Roger Stone – an associate of Donald Trump – fades from the headlines. Notably, it was almost entirely devoted to a CNN crew being conveniently present at the early-morning FBI raid on Stone’s Fort Lauderdale house.
“How did CNN know about a raid that was supposed to be a secret? Did they learn from [Robert] Mueller’s team?” Carlson asked. Shortly after the raid, which Carlson likened to “a military assault,”speculation began to spread that the network had an inside track with the FBI or Mueller’s team.
“CNN acted as the public relations arm of the Mueller investigation, as they have before,” Fox’s political commentator suggested. “The network is no longer covering [Mueller]; they’re working with [Mueller]. And you should know that as you watch it.”
Carlson was not the only one to comment on Stone’s arrest, and the way it was executed. The Feds sent more armed men to arrest the 66-year-old unarmed man than it did to kill Bin Laden in 2011, he noted.
Mueller, who is leading the Russiagate probe, “can send armed men to your home to roust you from bed at gunpoint just because he feels like it, and there’s nothing you, or anyone else, can do about it,” said Carlson.
He branded the FBI special counsel “the single most powerful person in America,” and yet “nobody voted for him… Nobody in Washington catches the irony in any of this. Mueller himself is the threat to our democracy. The most powerful man, elected by nobody.”
During Trump’s campaign, Stone boasted about having connections with WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, but later said it wasn’t a direct link. Instead, he said that he relied on New York radio host Randy Credico (referred to as “Person 2”in Thursday’s indictment) as a “go-between.”
The indictment says Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee about his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks, and tried to convince another person to give false testimony.
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Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren suggested that the FBI could have tipped off CNN before the arrest of Roger Stone, after a dramatic video emerged which featured audio of FBI agents banging on Stone’s door.
Stone was arrested at 6am at his home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla on a seven-count indictment which includes one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering.
Video of the raid was released by CNN as soon of news of the arrest emerged. It contains audio of an FBI agent shouting, “FBI open the door” while banging on the door.
CNN Exclusive Video: Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was arrested by the FBI Friday morning at his home in Florida, his lawyer tells CNN. https://t.co/Y715h2VvADpic.twitter.com/l4m5Q0YQqr
Van Susteren immediately took to Twitter to claim that the FBI “obviously tipped off CNN”.
“CNN cameras were at the raid of Roger Stone…so FBI obviously tipped off CNN…even if you don’t like Stone, it is curious why Mueller’s office tipped off CNN instead of trying to quietly arrest Stone;quiet arrests are more likely to be safe to the FBI and the person arrested,” she tweeted.
“Tipping CNN off so that it was there w/ its cameras is an issue worth exploring,” she added.
She later acknowledged that others could have tipped off the FBI, including Stone himself.
“Upon reflection, there are others who could have tipped off CNN …others knew, maybe even Stone suspected it and tipped them off…as an aside, if I worked for a news org and had the tip, I would have sent cameras,” tweeted Van Susteren.
Stone will make an initial appearance later Friday at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. He has vowed not to testify against President Trump.
The FBI has arrested Roger Stone, a former campaign adviser to US President Donald Trump, in a surprise early morning raid on his home. Stone has been indicted on charges including obstruction and witness tampering.
He was arrested at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, following Thursday’s indictment by the office of the US Special Counsel Robert Mueller which is investigating Trump and his associates over allegations surrounding his 2016 campaign.
Stone is facing one count of obstruction of proceedings, one count of witness tampering, and five counts of false statements.
It is alleged that Stone, who officially left the Trump campaign in August 2015, told campaign officials in July 2016 about future WikiLeaks (referred to in Mueller’s document as “Organization 1”) releases of damaging information found in leaked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails. US intelligence claims the emails were hacked by Russian “government actors.”
During Trump’s campaign, Stone boasted about having connections with WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, but later said it wasn’t a direct link. Instead, he said that he relied on New York radio host Randy Credico (named “Person 2” in the Thursday indictment) as a “go-between.”
The indictment says Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee about his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks and tried to convince another person to give false testimony.
Stone, a long-time ally of Trump, was recently praised by the US president for saying he would “never testify against Trump”and for having “guts” in the face of the “rogue and out of control prosecutor” Mueller.
The FBI showed up at Stone’s door in force. Agents arrived armed with assault rifles and clad in body armor, and without warning.
FBI agents are among those left without pay due to the ongoing US government shutdown, and the fact that they still went and arrested Stone had the anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ praising on them on Twitter for “protecting this country.”
Since Trump came to power, FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ‘Russiagate’ probe has been investigating the US intelligence community’s allegations that he had colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Stone’s arrest is arguably the most significant of the probe, which has so far resulted in several high-profile arrests on charges unrelated to the still unproven “collusion.”
Russia has dismissed all allegations of working to put Trump in power or control his decisions.
Many of Trump’s opponents blame Russia for his surprise 2016 victory against Hillary Clinton. In April 2018, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that Trump had not colluded with Moscow, but later the Senate committee said he did, choosing to side with US intelligence assessments.
Those assessments, as well as media reports often based on unnamed sources (many of which have since proven to be false) remain the chief basis for the ‘Russiagate’allegations, as Mueller’s team has so far failed to uncover proof of collusion in its two-year probe.
On TuesdayThe Guardian from the UK posted a shock report that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange in March 2016-this was before he became Trump’s campaign chair.
Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told.
Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House.
Here is what The Gateway Pundit reported as our first reaction to the Guardian report on Tuesday morning… It should be easy enough to verify the meetings if Manafort actually visited the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Right?
And if Manafort met with Assange don’t you think that would have been reported by now?
Wikileaks pounced on the report —
Wikileaks refuted the report calling it one of the great embarrassments in journalism history.
Then Wikileaks bet The Guardian a million dollars that their report is complete trash.
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