 I heard the news just yesterday That they've taken you away To be extradited To the USA They say that it's to sweet That they're gonna take you first But the Yankees are pressing hard For revenge is what they first They persecure your website And they'll kill your funding too There simply isn't anything That hesitates to do They use bullets, sniper bombers To get rid of who they hate And they're willing to use All these things to seal Up your fate You're listening to Clearing the Wall Speaking truth to expose the forces of greed With Margaret Flowers And now I turn to my guest, Joe Lauria Joe is the editor of Consortium News He's a veteran foreign affairs journalist Who covered the United Nations for many years Thank you for taking time to join me, Joe I'm very happy to be with you, Margaret So, Joe, today we're going to talk about Julian Assange I think most people know who he is The editor, publisher and journalist with WikiLeaks Who's being held in Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom Because the United States is pursuing extradition For multiple charges He has an important hearing coming up on Wednesday, October 27th Can you talk about that? Absolutely The main thing to remember is that Assange won The extradition hearing back on January 4th The U.S. has charged him under the Espionage Act They've charged him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion And the hearing started in January, February of 2019 2020, rather, and it was postponed because of the pandemic It picked up in September And the ruling came down on January 4th this year And she ruled to judge Vanessa Berets of that Assange Could not be extradited to the United States Not because any of the charges at the U.S. were leveling against him Were wrong or unfounded, but simply on health reasons She ruled that Assange was suicidal That he was at a very high risk of suicide If he were to be extradited to a United States Supermax prison Which was part of her reason as well The conditions of U.S. prisons were troubling enough to her That she didn't think it was right to send Assange to the United States To be held inside Alexandria In order to be tried there at the Eastern District of Virginia That was a great moment of celebration for Assange supporters She announced that she was discharging Julian Paul Assange But then two days later she put him back in prison We refused him bail because she said he was a flight risk He, of course, had gone into the Ecuadorian embassy in 2011 or 2012 In order to escape extradition to Sweden Because of fears that he would be sent on to the U.S. And that was born out when the U.S. unveiled their indictment of him So he's now still in Belmarsh prison It's a very high security prison in London And he is in there with some hardened criminals He's simply on remand right now He's not been convicted of any crime He was initially there for skipping bail when he went into the embassy But that has been served, he's there on remand And of course Assange's supporters were happy that he won that decision on January 4th Not to be extradited, but the U.S. appealed They filed an application for appeal with the High Court in London in January And it took till July of this year, 2021 In order for the High Court to grant the appeal to the United States And they granted it on only three of the five grounds that they wanted to appeal on And the most important one that they rejected was the medical condition of Assange And the testimony, particularly of one defense expert One medical expert named Michael Koppelman They want to throw his testimony out on a technicality In which he withheld knowledge in his preliminary report to the court Of Stella Morris, which is doing Assange's partner And the two children that they had while he was in the embassy They say that just by withholding that information from the court He had misled the court should be thrown out So initially the High Court did not allow the U.S. to appeal on the medical grounds In other words, they accepted that it was not appealable What the judge had decided about his suicidal conditions And why she didn't send him to the U.S. Now the United States didn't unusual move after that They appealed the grant of appeal essentially So they were allowed to appeal only on a couple of other issues But not on the main one, which is his medical condition So they appealed the judgment of the High Court And in August 11th of this year There was a hearing at the High Court with different judges Than the initial High Court judges Which granted the U.S. appeal But did not allow them to appeal the medical side And this judge, there were two judges This judge decided with the United States That U.S. could appeal the medical issue That was a very big defeat for Assange Because that's on the table now And that is what's going to be the main part of the appeal coming up Next Wednesday, as you say, a two day appeal at the High Court in London The U.S. is trying to prove that he's a malinger essentially Which is what they alleged openly in court That he was back in the September 2020 extradition hearing That he's faking it And there were certain things that came out For example, they tried to say that it was untrue That a razor blade was found in his cell and a cord And the next day the defense produced prison documents Showing that indeed a cord and a razor was found in his cell So they have been trying to say he's faking it The evidence goes against it Even the British judge, Vanessa Baratza, in his extradition hearing Agreed that he's too suicidal to send to the United States So now it's going to come down to a battle of this testimony Of Michael Koppelman And whether or not the U.S. can get the High Court To overturn the decision of Baratza That he's too unwell to go to the United States So they're going to try to prove that he's faking it And that's really to boil it down What's troubling is I've learned just yesterday from the court That the judge who was on the bench on August 11th That reversed the earlier High Court decision That said the U.S. could not appeal the medical side of this That judge who reversed that and favored the United States Is going to be the judge next Wednesday And that is very unusual From what I understand from lawyers I talked to in London That the High Court judge that made the decision in that case Now neither the first High Court judges which said they couldn't appeal The medical issues and this second judge that said the U.S. could And neither of those judges should be involved in the extradition hearing There should be fresh judges to look at this So the fact that the court is appointing this judge And I have an article up right now on Consortium News That talks about this judge and he is going to be on the bench there And that's not good news Now apparently the Songist team could challenge that Saying that he's not, he's biased and he should not be on the court But I don't know if that's going to happen or not So that's where we are right now Margaret We're gearing up for this extradition hearing It's not going to be anything to do with the Espionage Act Or any of that Which the Beretsa, the lower court judge sided with the U.S. On every side of that Now there's one other major story And one issue that has come up in the last couple of weeks That could figure prominently in this appeal hearing next week And that is the confirmation by Yahoo News That the U.S. and the CIA had seriously discussed Trying to either assassinate or kidnap and rendition Assange From the embassy in London This information came out in September 2020 Two witnesses in a Spanish court case Against the owner of a Spanish security firm That was hired by the CIA And contracted by the CIA To spy on Julian Assange This company, UC Global Global Had been hired by the Ecuadorian government to protect Assange To provide security But the CIA was able to work with them And give them a contract to actually in the end Set up a real live 24-7 audio and video Of whatever Assange was doing inside that embassy So they spied, the CIA did through the Spanish company On Assange meeting with his lawyers With his doctors, with Stella Morris' partner And anybody else who visited him in that embassy But particularly the lawyers Clearly this is a case where the prosecuting government The intelligence services, the prosecuting government Has eavesdropped on the defense preparations Of the person they want to get extradited With his lawyers And this was not thrown out of the case This is an extraordinary thing But Racer and her judgment said That was not an issue for her That it could not be thrown out because of that And more alarmingly, Margaret Is the fact that the two witnesses Who from that Spanish case Testified at Assange's hearing In September 2020 And talked about how an intelligence agency Which related from that was the CIA Had seriously discussed killing him Or kidnapping him That we knew as early as September 20 That's evidence in this case At this point, it's already evidence in the case It's not new evidence On an appeal, it's very rare to introduce new evidence This has to be evidence that was already Introduced into the lower court case So we've got that Now what happened subsequent, of course At the end of last month Yahoo News confirmed all of that That testimony and added plenty of details About how CIA really Was Mike Pompeo's operation To get back at him from Vol. 7 release These are CIA documents That WikiLeaks released He's not charged with that, by the way He's only charged with the 2010 publications Of the Afghan and Iraq war diaries But when he put those CIA files out The director at the time, Pompeo Was incensed and wanted him killed Or kidnapped And they did discuss it at the highest levels Now the Yahoo stories based on numerous Unnamed former And some current intelligence officers As well as White House lawyers In the Trump administration So there are some former Trump administration people Who are not named This is what this story did Was to make it into the mainstream While we reported, concerning news and others What the court, what the Those two witnesses had said in the court Back in September 2020 About the plan to kill us Or kidnap him That never broke into the mainstream Wasn't covered by the big papers This Yahoo story did bring it into The mainstream So the Assange's lawyers may want To introduce this into the hearing Starting next Wednesday As a way of saying this is how Suicidal he was, he knew That the CIA was trying to assassinate him This has to be admitted to prove Even more what his mental state was And why the judge decided not to send him Because he was suicidal However, the judge, Vanessa Barreza Who was the initial judge In the lower court case Who didn't extradite him At that time in her ruling Where she denied his extradition Mentioned and referred to this testimony From the Spanish witnesses About the plot to kill or assassinate him And she literally says in her reading I'm going to read you one line That she essentially is sympathizing With the CIA saying I've investigated this This belongs in the Spanish court I merely note here she says That if the allegations are true Kidnap or assassinate him They demonstrate a high level of concern By the U.S. authorities Regarding Mr. Sanders' ongoing activities It's chilling to hear this judge Who let him go and then threw him back In jail pending the appeal Didn't seem to care that the CIA Was going to assassinate him Or kidnap him Because they were too upset About his ongoing activities He sort of justified that If that's the mindset, Margaret Of this court, of this high court judge Who already ruled in August In favor of the U.S. And if anything allowed To challenge the medical issues Then it could be a very long two days For Julian Assange Yeah, and I mean we have to say At the outset that Julian Assange Has not committed any crimes He's just done what most Journalists and publishers do Which is to reprint information That's leaked to them This happens all the time Major news outlets do this So he has not committed a crime There's so many problems With this extradition case Certain things that are required It can't be politically motivated It can't put him at risk It's clear that if the CIA Is trying to kill him If the United States government Is trying to kidnap or kill him He's not safe coming to the United States Is any of that, you know These violations of the protocol For extradition Is any of that going to be Allowed to be brought up Or it's only going to focus On this health No, I'm sure that his lawyers Assange his lawyers To produce this new evidence From Yahoo And as you're absolutely right It seems like If Great Britain was dealing With any other country But the United States right now And the person that that country Wanted extradited from Britain Could it was proven That their intelligence service Wanted, at one point Wanted to murder this person There's no way Britain would send The requested person To the requesting country There's just no way But this is the United States This is the US And we know about the Relationship between Britain And the US And it's close And it's very one-sided In favor of the US So this is really troubling They are going to try to argue that Yes, how could you send Julian Assange back to Britain When we know that their Intelligence services At one point seriously considered Assassinating him In the heart of London At the Ecuadorian embassy Steps from the Harrods Department Store On the sovereign territory Of another nation, Ecuador They've considered seriously doing that And you're going to Send him back to that country So they could A judge could say Well, this is newspaper gossip This is not confirmed There's no name sources We don't know Even though that Test someone is already in the case From the Spanish witnesses A year ago And we got just a lot more details From Yahoo now And you're absolutely right To point out he's Well, from our study Of the indictment He didn't commit a crime He's been accused Of committing espionage And computer intrusion Conspiracy But we've detailed this In numerous articles And he is Not guilty Of course right now Of any charge He is charged But what he did Was what he did Was reveal crimes Of immense magnitude By the United States And other governments And corruption And this is why he's Wanted, man Because you don't stand up To the United States You're going to reveal What they're doing What the mainstream media Should be doing If they were doing their jobs But aren't providing cover For US aggression abroad Explaining it away As spreading democracy And all of the other myths That so many Americans believe Because it's been drummed into us Since we were very young About the greatness Of the United States Its special character Its exceptionalism And that it's the indispensable Nation And behind the cover Of all of that rubbish That the mainstream media Pounds into Americans Day after day The US goes around the world Pursuing its economic And geopolitical interests And having to Sometimes eliminate huge Numbers of people And doing that Taking down governments That won't obey That won't comply Just from the power Point of view And from economic interests And geopolitical interests They have committed Enormous crimes Since the end Of the Second World War From Vietnam to Iraq And so many other places In between And the mainstream media Either cheer-leaded For those wars Or cover up What we find out later And only reluctantly Like the New York Times Apologize the year after Saying realizing There were no WMD In Iraq that they did A poor job But did anybody At the New York Times Or the Washington Post Editorial page Lose their jobs? No. So they continue To provide cover For the establishment For the intelligence Services for aggressive Policies abroad To reveal those And didn't do it through Getting unnamed sources But got the actual documents That were sent to him He never stole them directly That's what they'd have to prove Joe Biden When he was vice president In 2010, in December Went on Meet the Press And he was asked Are you going to charge Julian Assange? And he said If we could prove That he went in there And stole it himself Then we have a case But if he was just Handed these documents We can't do it That's essential What Biden said And that's where They still are today In other words The Espionage Act Of obtaining and disseminating Defensive information Or classroom information Is technically, yes It's in the Espionage Act If it could apply to anybody Even to journalists It shouldn't be in there It clearly conflicts With the First Amendment It needs some day To be challenged In the Supreme Court But no one, no president Ever charged the journalists For publishing under The Espionage Act Until Donald Trump Because even the Obama Administration refused To do it back in 2011 They were trying to get them Only on the fact That he steal government property Or was it handed to him By a source Who stole it Who happened to be Chelsea Manning An army intelligence analyst In Iraq Who had legal access To all these documents So there was no need To hack them Assange did not help hack them Then they tried To build a case Of an esteemed operation In Iceland Where they took this guy Who's been jailed For pedophilia And he's a fraudster And he went to the embassy In Reykjavik And said Listen, give me immunity I'll help you So he participated As an informant against Assange But even then That was in the Obama Administration They were unable to get enough Evidence then To bring that Computer intrusion Or theft of government Property child Or that he was Even a hacker And that's what they Tried to get him An instinct To prove That Assange was Directing hacking And participating In hacking Rather than just receiving Hack documents To someone else Committed the crime To get them Tried under the first Amendment As you point out every day Journalists do that Published classified information That failed They brought this guy back His name is Sigador Thor-Dudson And he went The Trump administration Brought him back again In 2019 They brought him to New York In Washington They talked to him And he supposedly Gave this information That Assange Hacked or was directing Hacking That was in the Endowment of Assange Right now But as you might know In June of this year The student An Icelandic Paper interviewed This guy Sigador Thor-Dudson Who admitted Everything he told The FBI was a lie That he recanted everything So that part of Their case has collapsed They don't have a Case to prove That he's a hacker That he stole Government goods They can say That yes He disseminated Classified information But again Nobody's ever No president's ever Done this Until Trump It's a very Weak case They have And they're desperate They want to get him By saying That he's a malingerer Now that he's not really Suicidal He's not really that ill This is what it's Come to for the U.S. But you Can't feel confident About this British Judge in particular Or the court in general Can you What I said about Rates Her reaction to At that time Learning that There was a plot To assassinate Or kill him She basically said Well The Americans were upset By his ongoing Activities It's understandable That they would Be dangerous I mean For press freedom In general So the appeal Was filed You know The Vanessa Barrett Her decision in January Of this year The United States Filed an appeal Did that happen under Trump Or did that happen Under Biden And what is Biden's position now Very good question That was Initiated by Trump Just as his Administration Was winding down It was a few days Before the end Of the Trump Administration And he was In a The The outgoing Prosecutor In the Assange case He was leaving Government And he said He didn't think They'd go ahead With it It was just A matter of resources He didn't think The Assange case Was high up On the list But guess what They're still pursuing it Even Joe Biden Who said In 2010 If we can't Catch him He's It is an Espionage Case He didn't believe In that then I don't think personally He does now But something happened Between then And now The 2016 election Even though Assange is not charged At all With anything to do With that Or the CIA Vault 7 Release That turned Democrats So against Assange Wrongly in my view That It would be Heretical for That case I think it's A purely political calculation There He didn't believe He should have been charged In 2010 I don't think He should be charged Now But it's too Risky for him To go against What the Democrats Feel And why do they I say it's wrong Because You know The best thing Would have been Happened If Assange got Trump and Clinton Documents And released them both There would have been No question then The fact is That film by Laura Poitras Risk Is the scene He's on the phone He's telling somebody We have some Clinton Documents This is early on But we think We're getting some Trump documents They did get Some Trump documents They were Checked out And they checked out To have been Published already They never got the Material So if you're a Journalist And you get Damaging material That's true You've checked it out It's accurate Do you withhold those? Because you don't have Documents against other Candidates as well? You just can't At suppressing news Of course you want both Both candidates were horrible So you wanted to get Dirt on Trump There was a lot of dirt That did come out on Trump Anyway, but not from WikiLeaks He had to publish them It was a duty The other issue is This was not The theory is that The Russians Stole these documents The N.C. And Podesta Emails Gave them to WikiLeaks And WikiLeaks Wanted to damage Clinton wanted Trump And there's nothing Further from the truth If you hear a son speak He disliked Both candidates equally He said it was a choice Between gonorrhea And cholera Something like this So he didn't have Trump documents Now I argue That even if Russia And I don't think There's been proven That all that Russia It's in the indictment By Mueller That the GRU Agents Stole the documents And under the persona Of Gustav II Porno Gave them to a son We don't know Who Gustav II Porno is We don't have proof yet In a courtroom That was the Russians Who hacked those documents Because that indictment Will never go into a courtroom Because those GRU agents Will never be extradited To the United States There's no treaty Between Russia And the United States A tradition treaty Mueller knew this They built a case It's never been proven In court It's an allegation right now Nothing more Too many mainstream reporters Talk about as if It's been a conviction That the Russians Were convicted But I argue Even if the Russians Did take those documents It doesn't matter Because the materials Were true And they've proven true When Debbie Wasserman Schultz And other high DNC officials Resigned right after The WikiLeaks First published these emails It exposed Hillary Clinton Given those speeches To Goldman Sachs Exposed her For the callous politician That she is And this is her fault They shouldn't have behaved That way It was revealed What they did The Russians gave information If it was the Russians Not only It's proven They gave information To the WikiLeaks Who published it As a journalistic organization They didn't give disinformation To them to sabotage An American election This is the way it's portrayed That the Russians Sabotaged Hillary Clinton's Election Because they gave disinformation They poured disinformation They did not It was all true It was published Any news organization Has an anonymous dropbox That was pioneered by WikiLeaks Today They get stuff sent to them Documents They don't know who it is You don't have to know What the source is When you're getting documents Because you could check out What their documents are Correct If you're doing an oral interview With someone as a reporter Yes, you need to know The motive of that person Because you'd have to know Whether to believe their word Or not But if somebody gives you Documents It doesn't matter Who they helped Gave them to you If they're true Russians could put Stolen American documents Into CNN's Dropbox And CNN Doesn't know Who gave it to them They'll check it out It's true It's newsworthy They publish it It doesn't matter If the documents are true And this is what happened In 2016 But Democrats persist In blaming Assange Blaming everybody on the sun Except Hillary Clinton herself For losing that election To a con man And this is what happened But then blaming Assange Though I don't think Biden will drop The appeal based on This is all my interpretation My analysis Of course I don't know What's going on in Biden's head But hopefully He will still do the Right thing There's still a week left To drop this damn case Right Actually you have a piece I should mention In consortium news What the Yahoo Assange Report got wrong Which talks about A lot of how they perpetuate These myths around The whole Russia Ordeal So Congress Is supposed to be Looking into this report That the CIA Was planning to Kidnap and assassinate Assange Do you know what The status of that is? Well at this point It's only the chairman Of the House Intelligence Committee That's Adam Schiff California Who has told Yahoo news yesterday That he asked The CIA for information About this And he won't say Whether he got any Information back or not That's where it's at Right now It's a very preliminary Stage He's made an inquiry What is this story all about You know Is it true What do you have to say About it Will it go to hearings Will it become a big deal I don't know What I know of Adam Schiff He's a very High-partisan Democrat Who was one of the Major cheerleaders For the Russia Allegations And he Explained all kinds Of things that were Way out there And particularly In the impeachment hearing And other things That they said about Russia And Russiagate This was Trump He's still going after Trump Because it was the Trump administration That hatched this plot To assassinate Or kidnap Assange Or was it Because I just Discovered an email From 2010 From WikiLeaks That says That the CIA Refused to confirm Or deny In a foyer A response to a foyer Request Whether they had plans To assassinate Julian Assange It goes back to 2010 And the email says This is Obama-era justice This film by Alex Gibney That's going around Being re-released now Perfectly timed For the beginning Of the appeal hearing Next week To sort of smear Assange all over again Shows that tree That's where I saw it But it cuts out The Obama part And I was shocked Because in light Of what we've heard About now From Yahoo And what we knew From those Spanish Witnesses In 2010 That somebody was trying to ask Whether the CIA Had a plan to assassinate Assange 2010 So his lawyers could argue He's known since 2010 That he may have been A target of assassination That's how long He's been nervous about this That could weigh on His mental state And why we can't Send him to that country And that tweet I found the original one And it's quite extraordinary To know how long This has been going on That was Obama-era But of course I'm saying If SHIFT works at all On this Since he's now The chairman Of the Democrats Of the majority Of the intelligence House intelligence committee He could push it Because he wants to embarrass Trump And I don't care That won't care the motive As long as we get Some information About whether this Really happened And I suspect it won't go Very far Because as you know Margaret The House and Senate Intelligence Committees Oversight Have pretty much Become rubber stamps Since the days It was created in 1975 After the church committee Hearings And the pike committee And the Rockefeller And the second world war So these Oversight committees Were created then To try to stop abuses Like trying to assassinate A journalist In a foreign embassy So I don't know How far it will go But that's where it is now But I'm not really That hopeful That we'll learn more But we could Yeah, so it sounds like Perhaps it could just End up being a Performative type of Could be Yeah, they have to say Something So things are not Looking good I mean We have to hope That still Is there The Yahoo! Report did bring out A lot more Of kind of corporate Media Talking about this issue What kind of hope Do you have Or what can folks do Or what are your general Thoughts on Well, there's Sange goes from here There was a 25 Press Freedom Organizations That wrote to Biden Two days ago Or to Sorry, I'm Eric Golden He turned general Asking him To drop the case There is A number Booped her I'm blanking on her First name right now I wrote a piece about her The other day Because she Has a background At the ACLU She is And the ACLU Has come out strongly In favor of a Sange She is a Prison reform advocate She's quite liberal And an Even progressive Former activist Lawyer And she's Number three In the Justice Department She's allowed To walk into Eric Golden's Office And advise him We don't hold My breath about that But there's somebody From within Because it looks like The external pressure Is not working On the administration But somebody from within I think Biden is torn by this I really do I think he doesn't Want to do it Because of what He said in 2010 But he's In a bind Because of the Misconceptions About the 2016 election And the WikiLeaks releases So my Great hope is They dropped This damn thing Before Wednesday That overturned That high court decision Not to allow The US to appeal To medical grounds That guy Who sided with the US Is going to be On the bench On Wednesday He's a real Establishment figure Grammar school Oxford He was knighted And he's in the Privy Council Pointed by the Queen This guy Is the kind of person And Britain has Their own motives Against Assange We know From the Former Foreign Secretary Who Wrote a book Alan Duncan Who described Assange as A man Who was arrested From the embassy And the celebrations That were going on Inside the Foreign office And the MI5 And MI6 They all despised Assange Because he threatened A good game They got going That's based on Corruption lies And even war And massacres And war crimes And that's what The establishment rests On Not everyone in it Of course But they'll do that If necessary To stay in power And you don't want Their asses To get access We're okay With the mainstream press And we can pretend We have a free media But this guy comes along Actually does the work Of journalism He has to be thrown In a dungeon Maybe for the rest Of his life And if that doesn't Undermine a whole Concept of a democracy I don't know what does That's what's at stake Here It's not hyperbole To say That democracy Really is on trial In this case Because if You can get away With throwing A legitimate journalist Really exposed Not as a population That's distracted By numerous ways And lied to And propagandized So that they don't Like a son To hate him as a person That's the thing They focused on The personal demonization Old trick of intelligence Agencies Or Political attacks Is to go after The person Not what he did So they've turned A large part Of the public against him Not only Democrats And this is what's damaging Without the public pressure They could get away With throwing The sky away Forever Considered a hacker And a thief And all these other Terrible and a rapist In Sweden That's something else We didn't get into Which has been thrown out Three times in Sweden Never been any charges Against him This is the way To smear him And hope That the public Doesn't get behind him So that they could Throw him away And get away with it And it's not seen For what it is Which is a So-called democratic Country Throwing away A real journalist For publishing Truthful information About the crimes That we all commit That cannot permit This guy to do this And this is The point we're at If he gets away With this It's an enormous victory For the press And if he's not It will be Not understood By the vast majority Because the media Won't cover it that way But it will be One of the worst moments In the history Of the last Two, 300 years Of Western So-called democracy And again I don't think It's hyperbole To say that That's why we've spent So much time And we all end all If the judge decides That he can be Extradited Does he get extradited Or does the defense Have any options At that point To continue to protect Assange? There are options Who understand First of all I've heard that The judge won't come down To at least Christmas Or maybe after that If Assange loses And the U.S. Is able And they say That the judgment Of the lower court Judge was wrong And he can be Extradited He can appeal To the U.K. Supreme Court Six, seven months They want him Anguishing there It seems like They like him there John Shipton Assange's father Said the other day On a webcast That we livestreamed That they're trying To murder my son They want him dead That's what he thinks So the longer he stays In those conditions The weaker he becomes Physically, mentally He's certainly gone Through an unbelievable deal That most of us Could never put up With for a week Or two Let alone The years he's Now suffered this So they will try to go To the U.K. And that His lawyers can go To the European Court Of human rights But Britain has in the past Made numerous statements That they do not find Their judgements to be Binding. So if the Secretary of State The home secretary In Britain agrees And the court Cased the Barrages decision Not to extradite Is overturned He could be sent I would think That wouldn't happen Until some time Next year But if Supreme Court Takes the case But it could be More of the same The absurd theatre Of supposed to be justice That we've seen And this is what I'm hoping doesn't Happen on Wednesday But how could anyone Not think That he's How could anyone Think rather That he's going to Have a fair process Next week We have to Hold out hope But everything in this Case has gone wrong And unusually And he's Not won anything Except his Right not to be Extradited On the health grounds And then The court allows the U.S. to appeal that It's just extraordinary He will be freed But then of course The U.S. would appeal to The U.K. Supreme Court So he would not be Released from jail Then either If that's the case It's going to be in prison Until into next year Without doubt Before it's decided One way or the other I think Yeah, well Assange has done Such a tremendous Service in the Name of getting This information Out to the public That would otherwise Be suppressed And as you say I mean this is What journalists Are supposed to be Doing But so much is The whole case Is about Can the United States Have this global Reach to Imprison Force countries To imprison And torture Really anybody Who dares to Challenge the narrative The United States Is putting forward So I really appreciate All the work That you've been Doing for so many years On this through Consortium news And we just Have to keep fighting For Julian Assange Thank you Margaret For having me on. Thank you.