We must beware Julian Assange’s opportunism

Many, me included, welcomed outgoing president Barack Obama's surprise decision on Tuesday to commute former US soldier and WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning's 35-year sentence for espionage. Now, she will be released in May, having served seven years.

Manning’s has been a high-profile case for years, increasingly for reasons of compassion as well as proportionality. The young soldier, concerned about US military activity in the Middle East, was charged in 2010 after giving hundreds of thousands of classified documents, as well as controversial videos, to WikiLeaks.

In 2013, she was sentenced to an extraordinary, and historically disproportionate, 35 years in prison even though evidence has shown nobody was killed or seriously compromised as a result of leaks that raised serious and needed questions about some military operations.

In prison, Manning has endured many cruelties, including initially being forced by prison staff to stand for 17 hours daily. A judge later ruled this illegal (and removed all of 112 days from her sentence as recompense).

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But she was also held in solitary confinement for long periods and twice attempted suicide, which the military shamefully treated as actions deserving of reprimand and punishment, not compassion.

Notably, she has not been, and did not ask to be, pardoned. Manning pled guilty, has served a long period of time, and will, one hopes, be able to walk free towards a more promising future.

Assange involvement

But there's a curious side story: that of what happens next with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assumed to be the person operating the official WikiLeaks Twitter account, Assange twice tweeted that were Manning to be released, he would "agree to US prison in exchange – despite its clear unlawfulness" (tweeted last September).

On January 12th the account tweeted that Assange would “agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DOJ case”. On Tuesday, in the wake of Manning’s sentence commutation, the WikiLeaks account tweeted “Assange is confident of winning any fair trial in the US. Obama’s DoJ prevented public interest defense & fair jury.”

All very noble, and nobody can dispute that Assange has offered long-time support to Manning.

But this is calculated theatre on Assange’s part by a man adept at same. First, there is no “DoJ” (department of justice) case against him, and there’s no existing extradition order.

Yes, the US has long examined whether it might have a case. A grand jury investigation has been ongoing for six years, with FBI involvement as well.

No doubt investigators have further questions, following WikiLeaks' role in releasing hacked Democratic National Committee emails prior to November's US presidential election, widely believed to have come from Russian state actors. Assange has denied a Russian connection.

Assange – or at least, the WikiLeaks account – constantly sent out tweets in the lead-up to the US election that demonstrated a personal vendetta against Hillary Clinton. The tweets barely mentioned Donald Trump, and Assange's hacker sources seemed uninterested in offering any damaging material on Trump or Republicans.

Endangering details

Around the time of the DNC disclosures, another big WikiLeaks tranche of unredacted leaks from Turkey gave endangering details about many vulnerable individuals in the country.

Assange’s defensive posturing about both have discredited both the man and WikiLeaks. The DNC leaks were coloured by Assange’s gleeful tone of personal revenge. And the format of the Turkey leaks – from an organisation that vows to be cautious in its document releases so as not to place the vulnerable at risk – was inexcusable.

Assange's response to the gentle chiding of another well-known whistleblower in exile, Edward Snowden, was petty and personal.

Last July, Snowden, who worked with journalists to carefully assemble and redact document releases, tweeted: “Democratizing information has never been more vital, and @wikileaks has helped. But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake.”

The WikiLeaks account swiftly fired back: “@Snowden Opportunism won’t earn you a pardon from Clinton”, (then leading significantly in US polls).

Yet Assange has shown himself to be an endless opportunist who shapes narratives to suit his own agenda. Consider his January AMA (Ask Me Anything) with members of online forum Reddit, where he avoided difficult questions (as on fundraising, Russia, the US election) and was roundly criticised by many on the forum.

Are the recent  “extradition” tweets more carefully crafted opportunism? They certainly misrepresent the facts: no extradition warrant, no DoJ case. Legal experts also believe there’s little likelihood of a US prosecution either, as going after Assange for publishing leaked documents would suggest similar prosecution of, say, reporters who used the documents in stories.

Is Assange’s offer a calculated risk to get out of his embassy exile under a Russia and WikiLeaks-friendly Trump presidency? Possibly, and understandable, given his four years of truncated life inside a single building. But if so, ironic, given his snappy reply to Snowden.

But a self-effacing offer of martyrdom on behalf of Chelsea Manning? Unlikely.

Note: On Wednesday night, despite an earlier WikiLeaks tweet confirming Assange would accept being "extradited", one of Assange's lawyers based in the US said Assange would not hand himself in to authorities because the terms of the commuted sentence for Manning did not meet the terms of Assange's offer. "Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately," the lawyer, Barry Pollack, told political website The Hill. Manning will be released in May.