 I want to bring in former United States Senator Mike Gravel, who represented Alaska from 1969 to 1980. He's best known for having been given the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, who's been on this vigil one time, at least one time before Dan has, because Dan went to the press, and of course the government stopped in prior restraint, and ultimately the press from continuing to publish. So he went to a few senators, like George McGovern, who was running for president on anything to do with it, and a couple of other less courageous senators, and then he found Mike Gravel, who was willing to do it, and Mike read the papers into the congressional record during a subcommittee hearing, and the next day was the Supreme Court decision, actually, the very next morning, in which the court ruled at the times and the posts were right that they could not be stopped prior to publication, they could not be prior restraint, but the majority of the judges said that after publication of classified information that they are liable to be arrested, and that's key to the Estanche case, because under the Espionage Act, technically, it's a horrific act, but technically they could get him just for the possession and dissemination of the documents. So Mike, I know you're a supporter of Julian, and I see Dan Ellsberg right next to you. Dan has joined the show, but let's turn to Mike over first to Mike. How are you, Mike? Here you go. Yes, we can, Mike. Yeah, you're the one that controls the mute. What would you say? I'm mute, Chuck. I've never been careful what I say. I can care less about those mothers. But the key thing is just surprising how sadistic these people are in the system. Sadistic is the word. You know, we used to blot ourselves that no America would ever act like a German at Auschwitz. Hell, we act like that all the time. And what just happened with John is a case in point. And what they did to Chelsea Manning, the only thing that I can say good about Obama is the pardon, but not much beyond that. Because what Julian is facing is what Obama started. And I think that's not fully understood. I was fortunate. I was gun whole. I enlisted during the war in Korea. And one of the things I wanted is when I enlisted that I could pick and I picked the intelligence committee. So I was sent to an intelligence school at Fort Holborn. And then from there I was sent down to South Carolina. And we were just young men chasing girls. And this wasn't what I signed up for. So they had a circular out that you could go to OCS and they wouldn't extend your sign up, which was four years from me. So I went to OCS, the Combat Infantry Platoon situation. And of course Ellsberg well knows that the patch that we wore on was follow me. And of course, that's what served me when Ellsberg did what he did is goddammit, he's gone up the hill. I got to follow him. And that's what motivated me to do this. But one of the things that's not clearly understood is that when I was in the, so I go to Europe you know, thank god had I gone to Asia with my gun whole attitude. I'd have got my ass shot off. There's no question about that. But so I go to Europe with this good fortune and I go to the CIC, which is what my orders were. So I go in with my transfer and transfer papers to CIC up. And they said no, no, you don't belong here. And I said, what do you mean? See that room down the hall on the left? You go there and then you deliver your papers there. So I go there and on the door it says CIS, Communications Intelligence Service. And so here I am a bright second lieutenant. Really no experience, two years at college. And I'm the adjective, would you believe that position call for a captain, but for some reason in the IBM cards I came up and I was the adjective. What the hell? I was so green. Now I was, I could take top secret documents. I had several safes behind my desk and whenever I couldn't afford to go out with my car on a weekend I would go to the office and sit there, open up these top secret files and read from them. And it was ridiculous the crap that was in there. And so I started burning these files because I had the authority to do that. And so when, so here I was, I was literally a top secret control officer. I could classify and declassify. I was 24 years old and greeners all get out. And so now you advance it to, I'm a U.S. Senator and I'm going on 42 years old and all I can do is go into a room under guard and read depending on papers. And I couldn't take notes and the obvious no staff. This was ridiculous in my mind, terrible. And so when Dan called my office and spoke to me I said, would I be willing to use it in my filibuster because I was filibustering the draft at the time. And in a second I said, yes, please hang up because I wasn't sure if he was being tailed or I was being tailed. So we did, we met subsequently and in his movie The Most Dangerous Man in America that he goes through in some detail about what had happened between Dan and myself and the transfer of the documents. So I see Dan there. I'll let him pick up on our relationship which was that first phone call that he made and I, in fact I want to put a joke on Dan. Dan, he goes out and he suffers the indignity of being arrested every opportunity he gets. And he's totally committed to causes. I'm committed to the same causes but I don't get out there and get myself arrested because I have a hard of hearts view that protest is the guarantee that representative government is not working. And I don't even call ourselves democracies which is bullshit. We're not even close to being a democracy. And so what I put Josh Dan on because he's got so much more experience than I have in the intelligence effort but I josh him on that he goes out there and protests because he's expiating his sins by once being for the war. Now I was never for the war so I got no sins to expiate even if I did I'm a former Catholic and I can't get credit for anything in that area. So let me turn it over to the great person who caused me to do the right thing and that's Dan Ellsberg. Dan, you pick up from here. Hi Dan. It's great to see you Mike and Ray, my friends and John Curriaco and Joe Lauria who help you I know on your book. Terrific books. You remind me of that first phone call. I remember the words I think that I use when I talk to you which were Senator is it true that you're planning to filibuster which was going to keep the draft postponed at least as long as you filibuster couldn't pass it or renew it with the draft wasn't that it a reinstitution? It was renewed in September when they broke my filibuster because Mansfield wanted to let John Stennis say face and Nixon say face so Nixon agreed to let the draft expire two years hence which was 73. When 73 year old around I was still there and John Stennis being quite the honorable person he held to the agreement that the draft would expire so when I always say that I was instrumental in ending the draft and that's the terminology that I use instrumental because it didn't they wouldn't let me get credit and of course Nixon got credit but great about Nixon in one of the books he wrote to try and rejuvenate himself for the American people he wrote a paragraph saying that the worst mistake I ever made was agreeing to end the draft I enjoyed that By the way I was impressed that this senator whom I didn't know I read that he was going to filibuster I had actually tested a couple people on main names here including Jay Lord Nelson who had voted against appropriations a few times in connection with the war and had raised questions about it I was kind of testing him whether he was a person to go with the Pentagon papers and I tried one thing after another he brushed him all off mighty filibuster against the war might he do this and that and he seemed pretty burnt out to me at that point this was in the back in 1969 Dan let me add something there that could be helpful to you Gaylord was one of the advisors of McGovern and I had picked up that Gaylord was the one that advised McGovern don't do this this will destroy your chances of becoming president I learned that from Fulbright when he told me that he had listen with Nelson I got so disgusted with him finally and I was going to see McGovern leader so at the end I got up and I said Senator Nelson you've done a lot on the war there were times in my career when I wish I had done more than I did and I hope Senator you don't finish your career feeling wrong that you had not done more than you actually done I left him in some I wasn't in a good mood and I went to see McGovern and McGovern said he was going to use the Pentagon papers he had a very different attitude and I went through the whole thing with him he said give me a week to think about it and at the end of that week he did say he couldn't do it after all and later when I asked do you mind if we come and discuss at some point I went in to see him maybe a few weeks later when I was in town and he said that he had he had discussed this with a friend his closest confidant what you just said and who had advised him that he couldn't do it and he said he seemed to he guessed he asked if it was your name McGovern had earlier said nothing could compel him to reveal my name you know he showed the constitution speech clause isn't it that he can't be questioned about anything he said on the floor of Congress he said they can't even question me they can't make me tell your name whatever and so he said I did however tell a friend and he asked me was that Dan Ellsberg and I said was that Gaylord Nilsson had guessed from my little exchange with him that I was the bad guy who was trying to get him into bad waters and I didn't hold that against McGovern because he was running for president at that point and I had said to him earlier that I knew it was very questionable for him to run for president having put these out and he said you know you know my source of funding is different from these other guys and the people who backed me won't be bothered by it he said about a week later with Gaylord Nilsson he had changed his mind so here is this guy Gravel now who is going to do a stick his neck out and by the way a very good guy that I dealt with earlier Senator Goodell who had called for us to get out of Vietnam in one year and cut the fund off he didn't he couldn't get it first one co-sponsor to go with him he asked a question later to him of a fellow busher he said Dan if I could get people to join me I'd do it he said but if you do it as one person you're going to look ridiculous and in this job you cannot afford to look ridiculous so here was a senator of Gravel who was willing to look ridiculous if necessary you know all by himself he wasn't asking anybody else to join so I said is it true you're going to do this and you said I said well if you really want to read stuff I can give you enough to read until Christmas it will be busy until Christmas and mind you I'm dyslexic actually a lot more than that it's tough reading as you found when you were reading it into the record hard to read it I was so terrible in fact I remember the point where you really gave up where you said we are sending people over there to die and to kill for a government of drug dealers you know and pushers basically which is exactly right and very hard to say okay so you were very unusual at that point you were face you did face censure Ford as I recall and wasn't it Mike Mansfield I think who interceded for you yeah Gerald Ford Gerald Ford with a bevy of Republicans went to see Mansfield over that weekend and I hadn't seen Mansfield yet and Mansfield they walked into see Mansfield and they said what we want to talk to you about Gravel and he immediately made this statement I don't know of anything wrong that Gravel has done and that was the end of the meeting they just walked out because they knew they couldn't persuade the leader I went to see them tried to put or did what you could to put this other top secret stuff National Security Study Memorandum run into the Senate and were blocked by it and you'll recall that they actually assigned a committee I think it was Javits and somebody else maybe Gary Harder somebody was to look into the question of whether they could declassify in the Senate and they came back later in a closed session which was not allowed to be printed in the congressional record for a long time eventually it got declassified in and that they said you know it's very strange as far as we can tell we do have the right to do this it's not clear that we'd be breaking any law by doing it nevertheless that didn't mean they were ready to do it and when I asked Mike many years later in 2006 when we had hoped to get an impeachment proceeding going against George W. Bush and Representative Conyers had not only promised that he would hold impeachment hearings but he had written a book about it how to impeach the president that summer and he was told by then Speaker Nancy Pelosi when the new term started you will not proceed with impeachment proceedings on the grounds that that would bring the Republicans in and would do them the prospects of any new president we're reliving that right now obviously I would say the same issues are arising and we'll see how that works out but I was so disappointed that how little we got out of the 2006 class that came in there you know Democrats took the house then remember just like now and we got very very little of that from the Democrats and I remember asking Mike on that question Mike do you think these are extraordinarily cowardly congressman and he said no ordinarily cowardly he said it was exactly the same 40 years ago and so it goes now to get into the question of how this relates to Julian right now as Senator what he's facing is not only the kind of treatment that John received in prison but I think it's almost sure that and I think by the way John you did experience that tell me if I'm wrong some disciplinary issues where you put in isolation for a while is that true I was threatened with isolation a number of times threatened with solitary confinement and it was because I was writing a blog from prison and for the life of them they couldn't figure out how I was getting it out and the truth of the matter is that I was putting it in an envelope what do you mean the matter is what I didn't hear it they couldn't figure out how I was getting this blog out of prison but the truth is I was just sticking it in an envelope putting a stamp on it and throwing it into the mailbox well they're sadistic but they're not very bright either given what I've said already I'd like to leave Julian aside for just a minute and tell this analogous story when Mike was going to put this National Security Study Memorandum 1 the answers to it which were answers to questions on Vietnam they were extremely embarrassing written the questions by somebody who as they say in the Pentagon knew where the bodies were buried so the answers were very embarrassing to the administration potentially if they got out they gave them to microville and he tried to put them as I just said into the congressional record and they blocked him this is classified information we can't put that in the record then on May 3rd 1972 there was an event where we were having a rally it was during the offensive in Vietnam of 1972 the arvin our mercenaries in effect people we were paying and equipping and were fleeing from Wei and Da Nang south discarding that day discarding their helmets and their boots as they ran which seemed very strange to people when they read stories about it they said what's going on what is this giving I said having spent two years in Vietnam and work with arvin troops said I know exactly what they're doing this is on the steps of the capital on May 3rd 1972 and I gave a talk about it to a good rally crowd I said I know exactly what they're doing they are throwing away American helmets and American boots which they are wearing because a they don't want to be caught to be made clear that they were in arvin the people who were working basically for a foreign government the United States and that unlike the Vietcong or unlike the North Vietnamese Army they were wearing the uniform of foreigners and that was not something they wanted to be caught with exactly let me interrupt a minute is that meeting that you're talking about the capital that's when the promise was supposed to break your legs right that's right at that very time you were you were giving us talk was there a number of people from some Hollywood people talking and it occurred to me and and they had brought up I didn't know this at the time but as we were all there on the steps of the capital there were 12 cia assets as they call them from the Bay of Tiggs Cuban Americans have been in the Bay of Tiggs who were brought up from Miami with the first money actually the illegal campaign contribution from Dwayne Andreas was spent to take them up in DC they were going my picture and a couple others said your job is to incapacitate Elster totally I knew this a year later when it came out during the watergate and helped end my trial actually but at that time we didn't know it none of them knew that they were in the crowd prepared to incapacitate me totally but it suddenly occurred to me since you had just been blocked from putting this material into the Senate congressional record that maybe then you could get it in the House congressional record so I called over an aide to Conyers in the House and spoke to him and said here's an idea maybe you can do this he went over and talked to his boss Ron Dellons and then from my area here in the Bay Area and then talked to you and you may not remember this held up you saw me in the crowd and you held up your hand like this and you said it's okay it's going to happen so when Kiriako was talking about putting it in an envelope here's what happened the aide that night told me later this is 500 pages of top secret documents so he is copying them I think he's copying the one as you had done on a machine put them in the hopper just put it in the hopper to be putting the congressional record for the next day because Dellons had said I ask unanimous consent to extend my remarks I'll give you some documents and that's what he did so he's sitting there wondering what is going to happen now if anybody takes a good look at these documents he gets a call from the government printing office or whoever it is and he's afraid they're going to say the jig is up but the question was gee we've never had somebody put in 500 pages before would you mind if we extended over two days so they did extend it over two days and there in the House congressional record is 500 pages of top secret and secret documents which the senate had just decided they couldn't do entirely so it's exactly like John popping this envelope into the mail and getting it through and then they passed what became known as the Dellons rule that you couldn't put in more than 10 or 20 pages without somebody looking at it and getting more approval than they had before and as far as I know that's going on so we changed the procedure there now Julian would be not only threatened with isolation he's extradited to this country before there's a trial or anything else I am virtually certain that he would be not only put in prison immediately with no bail but in isolation from the beginning and he would stay there for the rest of his life Chelsea Manning had this experience from Coedon when she came back then Bradley when she came back and was put in prison in Quantico my old base officer candidate school and basic school when I was in the Marines she's in isolation in a jail right there for 10 and a half months and the only way she got out of that was public pressure then centered what nobody could get into see her including representatives who tried to see her no journalists from the time she was arrested in Kuwait until seven and a half years later she was commuted by Obama and she got out at the end of Obama's term no reporter had ever been able to talk to her no interview however for seven and a half years Ed Snowden took counsel from that experience and knew that if he was going to interact with newsmen as he did do and is still doing about the meaning of the documents he was giving them and how to interpret them and what the acronyms meant and many things that had to be explained about the things he had to be out of the country the same would be now Julian would be in isolation for the same reason as Snowden and that is they were working at stuff that was much higher than the top secret crap that Gravel experienced and he was in the United States and a lot of the Pentagon papers are very boring and very nothing really 7000 pages of that stuff has a lot of documents that didn't have to be put out I put it out so that I wouldn't be accused of having censored the material myself or having redacted it so I put it all out even though it wasn't all that interesting now Chelsea and Ed Snowden had information which they gave to Julian I should say which Chelsea gave to Julian Assange which was much higher than top secret communications intelligence material again I should be dealing with that to some extent Mike when you were a control officer but this was communications intelligence intercepts and so forth they would claim at least to worry that each of them had many more secrets that they could tell especially Snowden and Snowden I think would be in prison for the rest of his life in isolation so that he couldn't tell people in the prison population his secrets that he still had to put out and they could communicate them one way or another that would be their excuse for giving maximum punishment and setting the strongest possible example to anybody else who might want to sort of follow their heroic example so isolation would be their fate I think essentially for the rest of their lives and that is that of course as total torture anything I was just reading the other day beyond 15 days is regarded by amnesty international and many psychologists and others as torture cruel and inhumane treatment and that's what they would be suffering my friend Mordekai Vanunu who revealed the Israeli program nuclear program in Israel including their probable H bomb arsenal was in isolation as I recall for 11 and a half years not 10 and a half months but 11 and a half years out of what I think was a total 17 years since and it wasn't real good for his middle balance while he was in the isolation he recovered a lot when he got in the general prison population so that's what Julian is facing I've been saying for years now it's been years that Julian has been in effect incarcerated one way or another that he was absolutely right in believing in my opinion that he would be extradited and that he would suffer this fate after a trial which would not be a fair trial it's not possible for a whistleblower to be indicted under the espionage act that they all have been and get a fair trial because he or she cannot argue to the jury that why they did what they did what public interest was served whether there was have testimony from experts as to whether there was any damage or whether there was any benefit to the only the intention would be regarded as irrelevant as it was in my own case I was not I was the first person prosecuted on these grounds for a leak back in 1971 to 73 and when I got on the stand for four and a half days my lawyer asked me why did you copy the Pentagon papers and I had saved a lot of details so that I could give them under oath at that time I was not allowed to answer that question prosecutor said objection irrelevant and the judge held it up accepted that my lawyer tried different ways to get in the question through Leonard Boudin and finally said your honor I have never heard of a case when the defendant was not allowed to tell the jury why he did what he did and the judge said well you're hearing one now and that was the extent now my trial ended under extraordinary circumstances unparalleled since it was kind of a miracle that I got off since my judge had been offered his life's ambition if that trial came out alright and quickly enough namely to replace J.G. Hoover who had just died as the head of the FBI and he dismissed that as a grounds for ending the trial when it came out when it was leaked out he said it hadn't affected him at all that offer having found that I'd been criminally over her wireless war more tapping in his effort to kill me and so for incapacitate me totally various things led to my not going to prison but even I would probably have been allowed to be in the general prison population because for my 115 year sentence if I'd gotten it because the material I put out was only top secret and Chelsea's material rather than what she put out was secret or less that's much lower category or unclassified what Snowden put out was higher than top secret and Assange put out stuff they would just put him in isolation I think just to punish him for his years of irreverence toward the towards the intelligence establishment and the classification system now as I've said no possibility of a fair trial assurance that he would be extradited as I said I've been predicting that for years and other people said oh no he's just staying there because he doesn't want to spend a few months in jail in England for having jumped his bail or in ministry and many respectable journalists and others less respectable but many have said that's the only reason he's staying in it's just to protect himself from a few months in jail now I felt I had come to know Julian Assange well enough to know that was not true that he in fact when he told me that he was absolutely prepared to go to jail in Britain for a matter of months or even a year or two I forget what Maximine would have faced for that his only concern was life in prison in the US I was sure that was true and let me say something about it about Julian that not everybody is in a position to say having not met him and or would say frankly even if they had met him because Julian is a very unpopular person he's gotten I would say an extremely bad press including from the New York Times from the very first moment that they printed his material they treated him the way they treated me but that's another story as I told him I got pretty much the same treatment from the New York Times they don't like sources very much my guess is that they think of sources to them the way police think of their snitches namely necessary important important for their careers but basically bad people who betrayed their promise to keep secrets and their posing US policy and they're not patriotic anyway that's the way frankly I was treated but Assange was a little shocked that he was treated that way but he was as was Chelsea exactly the same way more important than that though was that he subsequently got very bad press from people in years when I said he absolutely did not deserve it I'm prepared to say that his activities in the last couple of years 2016 so but are rightly controversial and I by no means agree with his judgment on on all the things that he chose I cut somebody a lot of slack I mean in one psychologically and in terms of judgment who's been in one room or one little suite of office for six years I don't know I think that would affect my mental and emotional balance very significantly or anybody else's and I don't judge him very much for his judgments in the last few years frankly though I can disagree and I do disagree with a number of those judgments but having said that I don't say that to separate myself from my unconditional support for his his need for the asylum which he deserves in other places and he has in Ecuador my unreserved condemnation of Ecuador for washing their hands of someone to whom they've offered asylum rightly so and for their political purposes and I'm going to go one step further as I said a lot of people who movies about him which I think in every case were extremely unfair to him and biased and I say that in the following pardon me I say that in the following context sorry following context that a lot of people who have met Julian he's not their cup of tea and he doesn't like them and I'm not sure I would like to work for him as a matter of fact from what I've heard about his autocratic behavior and toward subordinates in general I wasn't his subordinate I met him several days in England when he was and I was helping him put out the Iraq war logs which I helped him do at a press conference and of course I spent several days with him there I visited him in his Ecuador asylum twice now and as I say many people first of all you don't have to like Julian Assange or even approve of what he's done in terms of judgment in the last few years or ever in order to be totally supportive of his asylum and opposed to his being tried on espionage charges which would be of extreme ominous significance for the press in this country and everywhere else so basically wiping out the First Amendment to a very large extent in terms of freedom of the press he would be the example of a publisher and a journalist they would use it for that who was actually indicted and convicted and it would cool a lot of journalism other than handouts and official channels authorized leads there would be some people who would risk jail like James Risen and others I think people that I dealt with like Neil Sheehan and others, Henry Smith would have risk prison in the face of the possibility of prosecution but a lot of them won't as Mike said of Congress ordinarily cowardly affects every profession journalism, politics and everything else so a successful prosecution conviction of Julian would be a tremendous cooling effect on any reporting of national security but I say the unusual context I want to put this in is this I don't know how many people I've heard say this having met Julian knowing his circumstances and the courage that he showed at various points earlier in doing what he should have done I liked Julian Assange when I met him first I liked him on the visits that I made with him there are many people as I say who have seen him only on movies who do not like him there are many people who hate him I am not in either of those camps I am someone who liked Julian Assange, respected him, admired him I could even say when I saw what he was going through in that embassy year after year I loved him I not only sympathize with his plight but I felt I feel love for this person and I admire him so I have a personal aspect on this and again without feeling I have to endorse and don't endorse everything that he's done as a matter of being best judgment or anything else I feel absolutely committed to keeping him out of an isolation cell I have to say something that's a different segue and that is that what we're doing we have to be realistic and realize that we're not going to influence the government that's the sad nature of it and so if he's not the reasons of saving Julian before this thing plays out are difficult what I'm wondering is could we not incite riots in Britain that would then move towards the embassy are there not enough peace groups out there and journalists in Britain that I don't have any contacts with journalists there but if they could turn around and get a brown vest and put it on as a group and go to the embassy and screw it up just get thousands of people around the embassy that might suggest a possibility of sneaking him out and that's what I've always felt that the answer to this is if we could get a billionaire who could put forth the money to get helicopters and do this we could probably get them to safety but absent that I'm very pessimistic about how this is going to be handled by the Trump government so that's just my two cents I always take the positive and let's fight but not just talk let's just fight and see I don't know see if there's an element in Britain that might want to step up to the plate and do something in that regard it'll be possible and Mike you know there aren't too many you're the former senator who would come up with that idea and be speaking from somebody who was willing to take risks like that and did take the risks and I appreciate it and by the way it's very pertinent it does remind me of something frankly that I've never I've scarcely ever mentioned people in London knew about it who were then supporting him but on my first visit it was there he had just been refused we arrived to do visits and we were told a new consul or whatever the person in charge of the that embassy was had arrived not sympathetic to Julian and was forbidding anyone to come in to see him which was certainly his right under the asylum rule and that we couldn't get in to see him and so I had decided that and I said it on the phone which may have been very helpful to some of the people we were working on said and said I'm going to go tomorrow morning and I'm going to sit in front of that doorway at the embassy and nobody's going to get in except over my body until they'll have to arrest me you know I had some experience with the power of sitting in this meeting and I thought that that'll give them some well we got there and by God the rule had just changed and of course it's for granted that I hadn't had this in mind when I said it over the phone but I didn't have any doubt that that had been noted as a matter of fact and so you're right though I think actions like that would be absolutely appropriate find creative ways to bring the attention to people and I said earlier the idea that he was going there was a secret indictment was being dismissed as paranoia and grandstanding by Julian and his lawyers for a long time I was sure that was not the case well now we know it isn't they made a mistake and they admitted that they have indicted him so that has vindicated that thing which has gone on for years now you know as did he have a basic need to stand on his asylum rights and stay in that place well one last thing my wife just came down to call me I promised her I would get out at this time but I think I have to put that off and to make the following point they have said that they will not send him to a place where he faces a death penalty I did not face a death penalty Chelsea Manning did essentially and in Snowden they might or might not choose to do that but that's in this country it depends on the charges they raise well the US is of course a place where he would potentially face the death penalty so the question in my mind is Ecuador is saying now we've been assured that that's not an issue we can come right out and say that I know of that means that he can be sent to the United States a way around that could be we have been assured that we won't seek the death penalty on these charges but that's pretty and that they might take as reason enough okay in theory we don't extradite somebody to a place that can face the death penalty but he's been assured he won't get those charges in the case of Chelsea Manning her charges, her charge list definitely included a possible death penalty but the prosecutor said we won't go that far we will not ask for the death penalty but it was very clear the judge and he didn't have a jury the judge would make the decision on sentencing the end the prosecutors would not bind the judge's hand on that so there's a lot of murkiness here there's no question in my mind that he should not be sent to the United States here for ten different reasons but one of which is that he could not possibly get a fair trial and we don't have an official sequence act as Britain does and whether that's fair enough fair or not if he'd violated British law if he'd done this in Britain rather it would be fairly clear that he had violated the official secrets act the same would have been true for me but in our country we don't have an official secrets act why not? we had a revolution we didn't pass the official secrets act that British did we have a First Amendment which very few other countries do have and Britain does not have as a matter of fact that is regarded as constitutional under which he can be tried he should not be tried here and I would say let me make this I said the very dramatic just in terms of the media today the amazing statement I like Julian Assange even if I don't like everything he's done and all this but I like I'll make another dramatic statement here he should not be sent back it would not be fair to do so he deserves strong support and as Mike Ravel just said that definitely includes the possibility of acts nonviolent acts of protest and obstruction if these wrongs are waged against him that is very much in line with what should happen may I interject as the next senior person after Mike and Dan may I say something what you remember what you're talking about the death penalty and all brings back a flashback when our supreme lawyer Eric Holder after Julian ended up in Moscow he wrote an official memorandum under justice department stationery saying to his opposite number the head prosecutor in Russia look please give it back we promise not to torture him and we promise not to kill him and I'm saying my god Eric Holder said that in this official memo to the justice department in Russia so here you go solitary confinement for the rest of your life is worse than death but against the death penalty of course I too would add that I like I love Julian he's my friend I'm a good friend I don't have a problem with anything that he's done and saying that if the only time you see Julian is when he's standing up facing into the man facing into the people of persecuting well he comes across as a little arrogant well hell he should be arrogant so it's a bum rap in my view he's very warm person one on one and the first time we saw him in the embassy at Ecuador we were celebrating the Sam Adams award for that year man we had just a wonderful time he had only been there two years now it's going into seven I think so I give him some arrogance if it appears like arrogance I give him every benefit of the doubt when I was with him three days before the election in November 2016 he was spent he had done all he could to make sure that enough information that he was privy to got out into the open with the help of people like you and John Pilger he did this and the notion that he would be brought back here where he has no business being here and subjected to the espionage act it's just too much boy if I could say I just remembered I agree with you Ray totally with everything you said there it occurred to me what I was about to say the other dramatic thought I would say which slipped my mind as a senior moment since I'm 87 much older than you Ray and almost as long as micro belt it was this I would be just as strong this is going to be hard to believe but it's true I would be just as strong against the extradition in the same circumstances of Stephen Bannon or I would be as strong against stopping a publication of Breitbart news which would be totally a purveyor of vicious racist terrible inflammatory stuff under the espionage act let's say as for Mike Gravel or Mike Gravel or Tom Drake or just some or any of the other people who have faced that issue a question of politics and I really do trust myself that I would be as strong to oppose that abuse of the espionage act against these people with whom I totally disagree their politics as I am with Julian Son one small detail Mike not relevant here but I think everyone needs to know the prestigious committee that you are the prestigious subcommittee that you were chair of when you took advantage of your prestigious position at this head of that subcommittee to get one of its members and then read the Pentagon papers that committee was the least prestige committee in the public works there was buildings and grounds the rake in front of the capital I would be doing my duty but you know one of the things that's not generally known that the young attorneys that were advising me when I couldn't do it on the floor they said well there's a precedent that permits you to use your committee and I said what's the precedent the house on American activities committee that was the precedent that permitted us to get away with what we did go ahead was you able to stand for hours and hours without having to go off to the men's room I had a colostomy bag and put on me and so did Alan Cranston because he was going to be in chair and then I had an enema and I had to talk to her with the doctor down in the senate and so we had this all physically figured out and my chief of staff was to come up and have a little bleed valve down by my ankle and his job I hadn't believed it and I didn't have it, it had to be chief of staff we weren't messing around