Some members of Congress are pushing for the Biden administration to drop charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
In an exclusive, Fox News reported Monday, “Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and James McGovern, D-Mass., are circulating a letter to their colleagues in the House of Representatives calling on President Biden to end the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing a possible extradition to the U.S. for publishing classified U.S. military documents.”
The report continued, “In a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter obtained by Fox News Digital, the two congressmen asked fellow House members to join their bipartisan effort to ‘strongly encourage the Biden administration to withdraw the U.S. extradition request currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt all prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible.’”
Fox News noted that other lawmakers have until Thursday to add their names to the letter.
Congressional efforts on this front are not new. In April, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib also called for the charges against Assange to be dropped. Tlaib noted that major publications have also opposed Assange’s prosecution, believing it is an affront to free speech and a free press.
“The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel have taken the extraordinary step of publishing a joint statement in opposition to the indictment, warning that it ‘sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,’” Tlaib wrote in a letter to House members.
Assange has been held at a high-security prison in London since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019. If he is extradited to the US, he would face 17 charges of publishing classified government documents that revealed potential war crimes committed by the US during military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and also alleged examples of torture.
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