 I think we have some interns in the back, welcome. transparency and democracy. to crack into phones, cars, computers, even smart TVs. in an unprecedented manner, dedicated his first public address to a publisher. Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom. They have pretended America's First Amendment freedoms shielded them from justice. They may have believed that, but they are wrong. WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. The private security company UC Global hired by Ecuador to protect Assange, cut a deal with the CIA to spy on Assange and the Ecuadorian diplomats. Together with these is the immediate accessibility to the newest major exposition, convention and meeting facility in the city of Las Vegas. In 2016, the owner of UC Global, David Morales, flew to Las Vegas to attend a security fair. As soon as Morales returned from this fateful trip to Las Vegas, he began bragging to his employees back in southern Spain that we will from now on be playing in the First Division, using a soccer metaphor, a football metaphor. But they were violating their contract with Ecuador and secretly working for the Americans via Sheldon Adelson. The CIA laundered payments to UC Global through Las Vegas Sands, a company owned by Trump mega donor Sheldon Adelson. An elaborate plan was set up between Morales and the CIA to install surveillance cameras with audio capabilities and implant covert microphones in strategic places such as below this fire extinguisher in the embassy's meeting room and behind this box in the toilet. Assange held meetings in this toilet for fear of being spied on. The CIA's increasing obsession to entrap Assange alarmed a UC Global staffer who blew the whistle when asked to target Assange's family and even plot an attempt against his life. They came forward and they spoke to our lawyers and they exposed what had been going on there because they had played a part in it. And they said that what their boss had been telling them is that they were working for the CIA and that those instructions about getting Gabriel's DNA that was coming from the other side of the Atlantic, these instructions were coming from the United States. It reads like some really terrible spy novel. Plots to kidnap, plots to possibly poison Julian Assange while he was in the embassy. I mean it's almost too crazy to be real. And it is real. It's hard for people to understand that such lawlessness is possible. So there's incredible criminality that has been going on in order to gather information about Julian's lawyers and his family and journalists who were visiting him. I mean it's shocking and I'm very fearful. I've been in a permanent state of fear for years. UC Global sent video, audio and other information about Assange, WikiLeaks staff, his visitors and the Ecuadorian diplomats to a CIA server. They also recorded Assange's medical consultations and went as far as recording Assange's privileged legal conversations with his lawyers. When Daniel Ellsberg was on trial for the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, his case was thrown out because it came out that Nixon had ordered a raid on his psychologist's office to try and get information which was embarrassing to Ellsberg. So of course that should have happened and it was right that it happened. Assange has been surveilled by the CIA. That by itself should mean the case is thrown out. There's no chance you can have a fair trial if the people who are prosecuting have been surveying the defendant as he's been having privileged conversations with his lawyers. It's completely irregular that it hasn't been thrown out on those grounds already. I mean really it's outrageous. Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for this Zoom press conference. The title of the press conference is the fact that attorneys and journalists that are suing the CIA and former agency director Michael Pompeo for illegal searches were citing explosive new revelations that have recently come out. And we're going to be urging the judge to deny motion to dismiss and entertain new evidence of CIA illegal activities inside the Ecuadorian embassy. I'm going to be turning it over to start things off to Richard Roth from the Roth law firm who is representing the plaintiffs. He's going to be providing an outline and an explanation as to what is happening right now. After that we're going to turn it over to one of the plaintiffs, Deb Herbeck, who is also a media reporter who went to visit Mr. Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy as well. And then we're also going to hear from Ben Cohen, who is an activist and is a representative and a spokesperson for Assange's defense here in the United States. He as well as Deb and the other plaintiffs also went to visit Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy. That we are going to open it up for a brief Q&A for any journalists who would like to ask questions. All you need to do is just ping me, Trevor, in the chat and I'll make sure we call on you so that you can get your questions asked. Again, thank you very much for being here. And with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Roth. Thank you, Trevor, and thank you everyone for taking part and listening to what we think is pretty startling news. As you probably all know, on January 23, 2023, we started a litigation. We meaning the plaintiffs were Deb Herbeck and Margaret Kuntzler who are on the phone on the Zoom, as well as Charles Glass and John Getz. For essential against the CIA, Mike Pompeo and a company called UC Global for essentially violating their fourth amendment rights because unbeknown to these four individuals when they went into the embassy in Ecuador, the Ecuadorian embassy in London, when they handed their phones or laptops or computers over to the authorities, everything was being imaged. And in the rooms there was tape recording, there was microphones and cameras unbeknown to them, notwithstanding the fact that two of the people are lawyers and two of them are journalists. And it's a clear violation of U.S. individuals right to privacy, right, you need a search warrant in this country, whether you're in the country or not. So we started a lawsuit on January 23 against the of this year against the CIA, claiming all kinds of violations, including the violation of the search and seizures. The CIA met us with an opposition, a motion to dismiss claiming they can't be sued and one of their main focuses on the motion to dismiss is that the allegations that were made are just insufficient. We couldn't really, the plaintiffs couldn't draw a nexus to bring the CIA into this as a defendant because under Iqbal, which is the U.S. Supreme Court case dated 2009, you need concrete facts upon which you're going to rely to prove that the CIA and Mike Pompeo were actually involved in this totally inappropriate conduct. In the complaint, we did allege that Mike Pompeo when he was first actually anointed as director of the CIA in his very first speech, he called Julian Assange and WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service. And it was very clear from the onset that he actually had a real grind with Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks. We also alleged in the complaint that in fact we believed, some of which is upon information and belief that UC Global, which is essentially a company that does searches and does security and the CIA met and the CIA essentially hired UC Global to in fact have it provide the CIA information that was going on in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The allegations were in the complaint. We believe them to be true and we are there and the motion dismisses essentially provides in part that we have not alleged sufficient information. One is we think we have but what's come out in the last several weeks is, for lack of a better word, explosive. And by that I mean, as all of you know, there's a parallel lawsuit going on in Spain, in Madrid, in which it involves many of the same people including the CIA and UC Global. And what we've learned from the press, El País is a main Spanish press, they have been following this litigation closely what we've learned as recently as this week is that there are there is information that was provided to the court by UC Global to us to conclude that the CIA was actively involved in the solicitation of UC Global to in fact have it engage in its in its inappropriate conduct. And the reason why we know that is because documents were turned over in Spain. And we've had, we've been, if you read the El País press, you will see, as we see again this week and there's articles coming out every week that there are files there are actually CIA files at UC Global there's all kinds of things going on in the Spanish proceeding. And the CIA will allege that in fact we don't have that nexus is somewhat, call it naive or just call it wrong of it. So what we've done is with the motion to dismiss that was filed a couple months ago today, we filed a papers in opposition to the motion to dismiss that said, number one, the CIA and Pompeo can't get about it so quickly. Number two, we have a nexus we've shown the nexus in the complaint, and number three, the extent we don't have a nexus, we now have information from the press in Madrid, which will give us more than ample information to amend the complaint if necessary and give very excruciating details of how the CIA, yes, our central intelligence agency was actively involved in trying and in learning information wrongfully learning information against Julian Assange, and the irony here is that Julian Assange is was is imprisoned in a maximum security facility in Belmarsh in London, and he was in the equity or an embassy, because the CIA blamed him for wrongfully for engaging in wrongful information when in in fact is engaging in when it in fact is doing far worse than he ever did as a publisher. So the reason why this case important is not only because these these individual plaintiffs rights were violated, because they were in the embassy, but it really the entire theme here puts a very big scare on any reporter, any investigative reporter who gets information should not have to worry about the CIA coming after it for disclosing that information it's done every day with Fox News it's done every day within New York Times, and it's done, and it was done all the time with WikiLeaks so we are in a fight. But what's the reason for the today's press release press conferences number one we put papers in and number two what we're learning from the Spanish courts is quite frankly startling. I will turn it over to Deb, because Deb is the plaintiff has been actively involved and also a lawyer. And what we're learning from the El Pais articles is is not only startling but it's very troubling that our CIA is doing this to our citizens and others. Deb I'll turn it over to you. unmute Hi I'm Deborah Herbeck I'm a media lawyer not a media reporter unfortunately it was my dream to be a reporter but I'm only a lawyer. So, we started this action in August of 2015. Basically as a result of the revelations from El Pais, which is essentially as many of you know, Spain's paper of record, and the, the initial revelations were, were interesting enough that came as a result of whistleblowers in a criminal prosecution that was is still pending in front of the High Court in Spain, and basically whistleblowers from UC global reported on the fact that that that Dave Morales was delivered was had been engaged by the CIA and had was basically acting as an CIA as they ramped up the, the surveillance that was underway at the Ecuador Embassy when Julian Assange was there and the most the more recent revelations from just this past Sunday's El Pais article that Richard alluded to we suspect are just the tip of the iceberg. In that article it was, it turned out that after two years of plowing through disclosures. The, it became apparent through sort of a glitch it became apparent that over 210 gigabytes of information that had been seized during a raid of UC global's office immediately following. Mr Morales is a rest the they had been not not turned over as they were required to be in the in the Spanish criminal proceedings against UC global and David Morales. So this is new entirely new information which the media is just starting to dig into and the we suspect they'll be a lot, a lot more to come. And that the interesting thing to me is that in the CIA and Mr Pompeo who are the defendants in our case are alleging that they have nothing to do with this little Spanish firm run by a sort of mercenary rogue. David Morales who were wholly engaged by the Ecuador government, just to provide security and if they went off the reservation that was nothing to do with the CIA. If you actually look at the timeline of some critical events in December of 2017 we'll see that that is absolutely impossible that that's the case. Essentially what happened was that and really an even better source for this is an earlier as there was a mini a short documentary produced by El País that came out just a few weeks ago that I would urge everyone to find but basically in that documentary we see the prior wasn't really known widely before, but essentially in December of 2021. I'm sorry, December of 2017. Things were heating up and Ecuador wanted to help leave the embassy which because it was interminable what was going on there. And what they did was they secretly hatched a plan to grant him citizenship at bestowed diplomatic status, so that he could leave the embassy under the protection of the diplomatic status that would be bestowed upon him which other countries are required to respect under the Vienna Convention and and therefore they enable him to leave the embassy and get out of the UK safely and to a country that he could act as a diplomat and live freely. And that happened on December 21, 2017. As on the very same day, a criminal an international criminal arrest warrant was issued by the US Department of Justice, and was delivered the following day on December 22, 2017 to the government of Ecuador to tell them that the UK. Which is the Americans telling Ecuador that the UK would not be respecting the or acknowledging or respecting the diplomatic status to be conferred on Julian Assange and this basically scuttle the plan he was to leave on Christmas Day, December 25, 2017 and that just could not happen because it was made very clear by the UK and the US government that to Ecuador that that he would be arrested if he left the embassy despite. The sovereign nations bestowing of a diplomatic status on him and really interesting we have an admission by one of the defendants, Michael Pompeo in a recent memoir in January of this year he is a memoir came out and on page 227. He talks about how on December 23, 2017. Two days after the. They learned of the, the plan for Mr. Assange to leave the embassy. One day after the, the, the arrest warrant had been delivered. Mr Pompeo says that he was sitting with his family and perusing as you do I suppose the CIA guidelines on extra judicial killings. Now, this taken together with Michael is a cost article in September of 2021 and Yahoo news that documented very thoroughly that the CIA was planning to. The search for a snap or even assassinate Mr Assange shows that this was not a rogue Spanish private security company they had a no nobody I know has a direct line to the DO J and the CIA and be able to get that kind of information into the sort of hands that can turn around an international arrest warrant that quickly, it just doesn't add up. with that I ask you to please keep an eye on LPAs. They've been doing some fantastic reporting and we really hope that the American press starts paying attention. It's the responsibility of our press in the United States to hold our government to account and it is shameful how appalling the coverage has been in the mainstream media in the United States. Thank you Trevor. And before that let me just tell everyone I've put in the chat the English version of the article. You can see it. It just came out and it essentially says that there's more than 250 extra gigabytes of files relating to the surveillance of WikiLeaks were finally found and it goes through how Mr. Morales at UC Global had files on his laptop that were called CIA. The CIA disclaims any connection with UC Global yet produced in Spain are UC Global's files that have CAA on it and the article is very very it provides a lot of information and we believe there's a lot as Deb said there's a lot more to come. It's not a good look for our agency with the CIA. With that I want to turn it over to Ben Cohen who's been a long time activist and supporter of Julian and has visited him inside the embassy in London. Ben why don't you say a few words? Sure. You know this is yet another example of the illegal activities our government is undertaking to punish a publisher that revealed illegal government activities. So the government undertakes illegal activities, somebody reveals them and then the government will take more illegal activities to silence that person. You know my understanding is that the purpose of a free press is to hold government accountable. It's not about clicks, it's not about hits, it's about getting the truth out there and in this case of Julian Assange I always thought that you're innocent until proven guilty but in this particular situation Julian Assange is already being punished. In this situation Julian's already being punished despite the fact that he's never been convicted. He's been in solitary confinement for four years according to most any authority, the World Health Organization, the UN, the Association of Prison Physicians. Keeping someone in solitary confinement for over two years, excuse me, keeping someone in solitary confinement for over two weeks is torture and he's been in solitary confinement for four years. You know if you look at you know the what what England has done previously in terms of holding people awaiting extradition there's another good example of the Chilean dictator Pinochet who actually did commit war crimes and he was allowed to remain in a mansion under house arrest. So for some reason they're treating Julian quite differently and clearly what they're trying to do is to make an example of them and say that any journalist anywhere in the world regardless of what country you're a citizen of if the U.S. doesn't like what you've published the U.S. can then prosecute you. That's absurd I mean that's the end of government accountability. So and then you have the actual situation of what Julian did. I mean he revealed war crimes. We know who the people are who committed those war crimes and yet they get off scot-free while the person who revealed them is in is being tortured. Kind of an open and shut case of shoot the messenger. So you're all of them. No no keep going I just I agree thank you. Well I just wanted to finish with that Biden likes to say that he believes in freedom of the press and he'll grandstand and make all these pronouncements about condemning other countries around the world that are throwing journalists in prison for printing the truth or printing information that a particular government doesn't like. Biden neglects to mention that his administration is seeking to put a journalist in prison for printing the truth and keep them there for the rest of his life. You know Obama refused to do that because of what he called the New York Times problem. If we needed to if we were going to prosecute Assange he'd needed to prosecute the New York Times and any other publication that publishes information like that. So he refused to do it then Trump came into office and he said well I'm going to prosecute Assange. He had a pretty freewheeling interpretation of the law and now Biden is just following in Trump's footsteps. So this is an opportunity for the free press of the world to hold the U.S. accountable for this grave injustice. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay with that we're going to open it up for some questions. For anybody any journalist out there who has a question for our guests please let me know in the chat. Our first question is going to go to Joe Lauria from consortium. Joe. Thank you very much Trevor. It's a question two questions for Richard Roth. First I'm not sure that the actual contract that Morales and UC Global may have signed with the CIA has surfaced in discovery. Is that important that he was paid for or it's simply working to surveil Assange in the embassy on behalf of the CIA? Is that enough? And secondly if I read the CIA's motion to dismiss correctly then I'm only talking about the failure your failure to provide that secure nexus which is new information. Emerge certainly bolsters for you on your part but they're also questioning jurisdiction that this took place on Ecuadorian territory inside the United Kingdom. Is that something you're addressing and could you talk about that issue of jurisdiction as well as the contract? Thank you. Sure. Sure. A bunch of questions there. Let me deal with the jurisdiction first. Yeah I'm not worried jurisdiction is not a problem because quite frankly we have and it's in the complaint. We have proof that the CIA's New York office actually was involved in at least as alleged in the wrongful conduct and we have two plaintiffs who actually are New York residents. So I'm not really I'm not worried about jurisdiction. The CIA there's jurisdiction against them in all states as well as Pompeo. As far as the contract we don't know if there's actually a written contract between the CIA and UC Global. I would suspect there wouldn't be. I don't think there's going to be you're going to spy on a signed and we're going to pay you for it. I don't think that exists but we don't need that. When you when you look at contract law you really look at the actions of the parties. The actions of the parties are so much more important. I may not sign a contract but if I provide you 10 bricks a day for 10 days you know that was my you're right in my obligation. It's the same thing here. If you see global has has CIA files and is doing surveillance of Assange with for why would they why would they have CIA files are they're not there's no relationship but for the fact that their surveillance company in the CIA wants them to surveil them. So what we're learning is and what we're going to continue to learn from Al País the Spanish proceeding is that in fact whether there's a formal agreement or not is irrelevant. If in fact the CIA employed UC Global and yes we're going to also look at financial statements financial documents as well. If the CIA employed UC Global no matter what way and then and that UC Global was providing as we understand it direct feed not only were they taking the imaging the the the laptops but they're providing direct feed to Washington. Could you imagine Julian Assange's meeting with his criminal defense lawyer to defend a case against the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington and Washington is listening to the conversation he has with his lawyer. I mean you want to talk about violating the Fourth Amendment. You want to talk about violating the attorney client privilege. So once we find that and we have clear rendition that it's there we believe that the court is going to allow us to amend the complaint and this amended complaint is going to be very strong because every single week Al País comes out with more and more and more information and if we have to petition the Spanish court to get that directly ourselves we will but there's a lot of evidence already. There's there's a there's a amount of evidence showing the CIA was intimately involved and in fact directed UC Global. So if that's not enough to hold the CIA accountable I don't know what it is. Folks I just want to let people know that I have put in the chat to everyone our motion and opposition to the CIA's motion to dismiss. So that is in the chat for everybody because I recognize that's as Ed Pilkin that's clearly the laws are it's very hard to sue the U.S. government. You name the agency it's hard. There's exemptions there's immunities and the CIA has loaded their motion with all those and it's an obstacle we're going to have to overcome. There is a chance that the court says you know what you haven't overcome those obstacles we do believe that from this more new information we've obtained under Iqbal and other cases that we believe that the court will will deny the motion but it's it's you know that the government does make it hard to be it's hard to sue the government there's no question about it. If I could just add one point on that the issue of the the proof about the CIA having turned Morales into an agent as alleged in our complaint this all happened in early January 2017 when there was a when Morales went to a convention first private security firms in Las Vegas and our what seems very clear from the evidence that we've seen is that he was he was bragging about the fact that he had the contract from the Ecuador government to provide security at the embassy where Julian Assange was then staying and under having sanctuary and he was turned into an agent then by the security team that was engaged by Las Vegas Sands. Cheldon Addison was a known close colleague of the then president Mr. Trump and the very very if you want to go down a good rabbit hole have a look at the there's a very similar situation that happened in Macau some years ago when this around the same time actually just a couple years before when the and heavily reported in the Guardian when the Las Vegas Sands was used by the CIA to basically provide cover up for the for its activities by turning local security agencies into agents of the CIA so there's this is this is their remote this is what they do they don't sign contracts they they they do things covertly. We also have very significant affidavits that were accepted by the the extradition court saying that they were whistleblowers they're not mentioned because they're afraid that their names come out who were working for UC Global who testified that in fact that that Morales was bragging about his relationship to the CIA consistently they also have a number of other connections that they make that is very significant so when we started out with this we didn't have this kind the evidence that we have now but we did have the testimony of two people who worked for UC Global who said that Morales was working with the CIA. Okay thank you very much Margaret we have a couple more questions Tarek do you want to go ahead and ask can you unmute yourself if you're muted? Can you hear me now? Yeah now we can. Okay thanks Trevor and thank you all for your presentation today yeah my name is Tarek Haddad I'm a journalist based in London I've been following the case for the last three years following the court proceedings as well as the the actual spat that was going on in Spain Deborah just alluded to it there the company Las Vegas Sands my question is in relation to this obviously those of you that are familiar with what's happened in this case will know that Las Vegas Sands seems to be an integral part of this whole spying operation and they're obviously a US firm formally owned by Sheldon Ailsen I just was curious why they're absent from the litigation Richard you're muted I missed that you what was the end of that question why what they're not included in the litigation at all they're not mentioned they're not defendant they our action is in New York and they don't have a New York presence and quite frankly I mean if the location where a deal was struck was a Sands I don't really care where the location which what the location is I care about the people that struck the deal and that's what really we're going after really that we're going if you will to the to the to the the heart of the of the matter which is against the individuals and entities that decided to engage in this for lack of a better word espionage on their own citizens we would have loved to see Sheldon Ailsen if we've been able to okay that's great Anna and a breeze I see she has a question for everyone does democracy need some secrets you're muted you're muted there she is hi everyone I'm so excited about citizen journalism mobile journalism it's you know we all have a voice we can all make a difference but I'm so excited about what I'm doing what I'm doing in terms of enabling and empowering people with their mobiles so I I do have a question to ask in relation to Assange because I was involved in this many years ago and it was always Russia today it was always Russia today that was looking after Assange and I felt a bit uncomfortable about that I'm completely going back to the ground hyperlocal immobilizing and empowering citizen journalists with mobile journalism you we're all we've all got a voice we all matter but I'm trying to bring it right back down to the people hyperlocal the communities I don't know Julian Assange I don't know him I've written to him in prison um I haven't had a reply what I would say is we're all we all care about the truth we all care about that movement but we're all with a with the advent of AI and deep fakes I'm finding it very difficult to build trust when I don't know any of you I don't know any of you I only know the people I meet I know the people I meet here immediately um and I also am very passionate about mobile journalism citizen journalism so my my concern is how do we organize ourselves does democracy have to have some secrets and has Julian Assange this is a challenge it is a difficult and painful challenge there's as Julian Assange destroyed democracy I'm going to say no um even if which we can just disagree or agree on whether democracy needs secrets um Julian Assange and WikiLeaks published verified newsworthy information that was amplified by five major uh international uh papers of record in five different countries so I think that um if you you know whether or not you trust the source the media such as the New York Times um Washington Post sorry and um uh The Guardian and Der Spiegel that perhaps you do have more trust of they verified and uh further you know they did they wouldn't have reported his information without making sure that it was accurate so he's not in jail for destroying democracy Julian's in jail for publishing verified newsworthy information that you only heard about because other mainstream journalists and publications got it out there so that's what we're talking about is whether he should be in jail for that how does democracy look when we are allowing secrets to be shared how is how does that work so I have a couple I can you can approach it two different ways one way to approach it is how does a reporter how does it what is it how does an investigative reporter draw a line on what they should publish if an investigative reporter gets some information gets Donald Trump's tax returns what's a New York Times got should it not publish it because it got it it shouldn't have gotten it and the concern I have is that people like you shouldn't have that test you shouldn't have to say do I report this will I get in trouble with the authorities absolutely that's and that's a real risk to the First Amendment in this country so that's sort of one way to approach it you if you get something and you think it's newsworthy then you should have a right to publish it and that's what makes people nervous that that that this whole this whole onslaught and Julian Assange puts the First Amendment right at risk we're in a really difficult place because we have brands we have brands big brands Fox News BBC ITV big brands and then we have individuals and you've seen what's happening with Tucker Carlson at the moment on Twitter he has 70 million he's totally transforming what's happening in terms of media and trust so we have big brands organizations and we have individuals so do we trust the individual or do we trust the organization that's the question well I listen I I do believe democracy does have secrets I mean there are secrets in the government but the press shouldn't have if something comes out of a historical event whether it be a president or any anyone in any country the press shouldn't have this who's gonna he's gonna he's gonna tell the story who is gonna be the person to reveal this massive story the answer is whoever it goes to on your end and you shouldn't be you shouldn't be no no it's all about who has the most trust to reveal the story so Assange has power you have power we all have power he has enough power to tell the story about this big reveal well that's that's now so now we're blunt you're right because now we're blending in this whole fake news element all these all these little people are coming out with news stories which are just ridiculous and so when as Deb said five legitimate sources confirmed that what he said was accurate and stand by him and as recently as I think two months ago I think there were was it seven or eight different international newspapers came out and said what are we doing with I worked for the BBC I worked for ITV who cares who comes out with this story who is going to reveal the story is it going to be Tucker Carlson is it going to be the BBC is it going to be what was we had some incredible stories coming out from um uh what was it uh Project Veritas Project Veritas who is going to be the story you know is it Assange who is going to reveal I don't want to cut you off and I don't mean to be rude we only have a few minutes left because of the a lot of time for the zoom so I need to go to some other people who have questions please accept my apology um okay I have a question from uh uh what can can can folks just talk a little bit more about David Morales this is coming from a few uh journalists what is the significance of him what tell us a little bit about him David Morales is the CEO Deb you want to take that? Deb you want to take that? Sure um yeah I mean he was he was he was CEO of um UC Global which was a tiny tiny tiny private security uh company in Spain before it ended up getting this gig um it it had literally um two very small contracts from the Ecuador government and um and then all of a sudden it's his he he was he was a former Marine I believe I know he was in the military um he uh sort of a mercenary kind of a guy uh when he went to the Las Vegas Sands shot convention in 2017 that's what we want to hear yeah all of a sudden his um fortunes seemed to change he started jet setting around he came to the United States 64 times in the two years subsequent to that uh having uh apparently to practicing his English when when asked why he had to make so many journeys to the United States from Spain all of a sudden um people noticed he was driving fancy cars um he he um he but he he just all of a sudden got lucrative contracts in Central and South America um so uh the Ecuador government wasn't giving him that kind of access so that's who he is he's a mercenary um okay he was paying him handsomely for doing this thank you Deb um we have a question from William Goodwin he has a question he says what is the hardest that has emerged that the CIA was involved in UC Global what goes beyond circumstantial evidence of the CIA's role in the case is it the files named CIA on Morales's computers or is there something else so let me go ahead Deb you could start Deb well we suspect there's a lot more because these files were just turned over um very recently a week or two ago so um and there's 210 plus gigabytes of information there and these were deliberately withheld by the Spanish police so we suspect in those 210 gigabytes there's a lot more uh this was the first thing that was discovered including communications are we expect to see communications between UC Global and somebody at the CIA and so we think there's a lot there you don't have a CIA I don't have a CIA file on my desk I mean why do you need a CIA file unless you put documents in it so that's where we're going okay Stefania you've been waiting pay do you have a question you need to unmute yourself can you hear me yes so good good afternoon I'm an Italian journalist I have been working on this case for the last 14 years on all documents I have been spied etc I want to ask is there any solid evidence that all data of all all of us were uh basically copied by UC Global I'm asking because my phone was opening too but I have no evidence that my data were actually uh copied when you went and met with Assange yeah yeah right um we suspect we'll um we'll find solid data I mean the fact what we do have is photographic evidence of the backs of cell phones being um taken off photographs of the SIM card sort of graphs of the IMEI which is only inside the phone that is a very weird thing for a private security agency to be doing if they're not actually getting at the data or trying to hack the phone and and to add to that to Margaret's point earlier one of the reasons why this case was started is because we had two people who were at UC Global who were very uncomfortable in doing what they were doing so we have sworn affidavits where they essentially provided a detailed math of what they were doing and why they were doing it which is what led to this really this whole lawsuit because all of a sudden we said wait a minute we were in you know they were in the embassy so yes there's there's real evidence that we expect there's a lot more can I just add one very quick information my phone was opening to in a precise moment December 2017 one month after I had discovered the destruction of key documents by the Crown Prosecution Service which is the interface of the US Department of Justice in the extradition and uh sat after six years this week last week the London Tribunal basically issued an order to the Crown Prosecution Service to provide any information on the destruction of documents or to and if they don't comply they risk basically contempt proceedings they have to comply by 23rd of June and this happened one month after I was I was I discovered this destruction my phone was unscrewed crazy it's just you know showed you the power we we would not know any of this but for what's going on in Spain I mean we are um learning every day we're learning every day and there are conditional hearings there's additional productions and and the Spanish lawyers are going are going through this closely because we would never know any of these facts this would all have been we would have been it would have all been concealed from us but for the fact that you see global and the Spanish courts I want to know what what the heck went on here um Amelia butlin I hope I'm pronouncing that way has a question for folks what is the timeline and judicial procedure ahead regarding this case uh so that's a fair question of courts things in new york never go in the u.s. never been that quickly um the there will be reply papers filed by the government they will probably be filed um they're due in a month they may want more time we will probably have a decision on this motion um sometime by I would say the fall maybe early fall maybe even late fall maybe even winter uh there's some very serious issues that the court has to address and the court understands the significance of these issues so um once we get a decision by the court either granting the motion to dismiss in which case the case is over or granting the motion to dismiss and letting us replede in which case we'll file a new complaint or denying the motion dismissed we will then start discovery these cases will not be going this case will not be going to trial until probably at least a year from now okay shan waterman from newsweek you have a question shan are you there okay hello sorry hey there shan yeah so my question I'm sorry I was a little late joining so sorry if you already covered this but can you talk about the uh public statements made by Pompeo in his autobiography and elsewhere since the original complaint was filed and what impact that might have on the case is that Pompeo's statements um Deb you want to talk about the what's in the memoir he wrote a book right it's you can go to Barnes and Noble and buy it and he says some very revealing things I'm not sure if you heard what Deb said earlier about the timeline um but um it's somewhat startling that he was um almost on christmasy looking at uh what was it that extrajudicial um assassination the guidelines on extraditional killings um by the cia that we have guidelines for those of denny um and he specifically stated uh that he was looking at those uh documents right a day a day after um the plan for the Ecuador plan to bring julian to safety was um scuttled other than that he really has not said a lot he really does not he's about to announce his run for presidency so he's staying as far away from this as possible okay I have another question can us complain finance ask for financial investigations on uc global finances so check where the money came from I'm not sure if I understand that can you say that again trevor stephania hook me up she says I want to ask can us complainants ask for financial investigations okay okay so yes so we are um as plenty the plaintiffs are entitled to discovery uh is should the court deny the motion the cia is a defendant so we are entitled to discovery from uc global and cia to look at financial documents to look and see what money was exchanged by from the cia to uc global forward services um we also hope to get them in spain um we hope that that that those are some of the documents we're going to see now are you going to see a deposit from the cia most likely not and it's going to involve a little tracing but we do believe that there were significant payments made to uc global amorals by the cia or on behalf of the cia um I have another question I think for everybody especially for deb and richard um can the speakers address in more detail what is it in the new filing and that that really is going to take the story forward I mean I take it with that let me start deb ladies first ladies first um all right well I mean the uh the the we should be clear that this is the primary purpose of the filing is opposing the um motion to dismiss which is you know basically making the point that we did allege quite thoroughly in our initial complaint which was as marvitt said based on um sworn testimony by uc global employees that they were in fact acting under the orders of the cia this testimony was submitted in connection with the uk extradition proceedings the extradition proceedings in my quote um uh in in london for the extradition of julia nissange and the us government did not oppose these submissions so essentially um these these these statements by uc global um employees were uh essentially accepted by the us government so the bulk of our uh motion is to um emphasize the fact that we've absolutely you can't be dismissed just based on the complaint but you know as it happened a few days before we filed the motion we learned all this new stuff that came in uh out on sunday from the um uh from alpais where it was clear that there's mountains of evidence that will further back up our claim probably provide more physical evidence we'll wait and see and uh additionally a couple weeks ago there was this great video of this um it's in spanish but it's uh got american english subtitles all about this escape uh this um the plan to free julian from the embassy that was scuttled very very quickly um by the us government in uh december of 2017 and if you look at uh go ahead marga no i i think there was a question earlier about pompeo and his speech um and i think that outlined exactly what the the cia was attempting to do and that was to criminalize journalism and a hole i mean it was to uh assert that certain activities as based on uh publishing uh various uh national security matters were criminal and it's it's it makes it possible to criminalize and i mean it's so hard to be a journalist to begin with now anytime a journalist wants to publish something revealing something about national security and the word national security seems to cover everything now they're really in in in a difficult situation they they face prosecution in the united states we're talking about anything that is national security protecting and i would just add to to the question if you go uh trevor put in the chat if you look at pages 30 through 34 of the of the it's at the very end but of the memo we filed today this morning um you will see what what just dev just referred to as some of the new evidence that's come in and and as dev said if you if you read out paiz there's weekly new information coming out about the cia's involvement in this um in its surveillance of joint assange okay and then um torrey says you have a question torrey yeah you're muted torrey all right can you guys hear me now yeah all right fantastic great conversation and thank you for elaborating on morales because there's a lot of people that don't know but one thing i wanted to kind of ask is a two-part question uh we do understand the cia connection with all this of course and we do know that uc global has worked with the analysis corporation type people um you know which was john brennan's company out in europe right based in luxembourg um a lot so have we actually taken a look into adam waldman because adam waldman actually as you all know visited uh julien assange and he's been um known to have worked with uc global as well so that was kind of a statement question have we looked into it and then the one thing that i get from my audience and anybody can answer this is what else can we do because as people we acknowledge that you know in this day and age 2023 secrets are pretty much gone especially with the invention of cyberspace and we do understand what america was for julien assange to shed the light on many governments on what atrocities are happening and how they're happening now i know my listeners have been sending letters to julien assange i have been talking about him being imprisoned you know and i kind of call out journalists that never mentioned that he's still there these people made a lot of money from the information he provided but none of them are willing to put themselves on the line to help him through the situation and messing with the cia is no fun so and gchq no fun so what can they do i mean i've tried with a lot of my listeners that are in latin america to approve the ecuadorian government to see what quid pro quo happened to allow things like this to happen what else can they do because protests don't work uh we've been writing letters uh you know we've tried to bring to the light where we subpoenaed uh well we asked for an open records request for the pardon that president trump signed but was never formally presented because if that document exists then that's a big deal and the fbi has hid that from us so what else can the people do so those two questions you see global adam waldman and that can i can i margaret i mean margaret is a legend she's she is a human rights and the constitutional rights civil rights attorney that is legendary so i definitely want her to answer the second part of that i don't know about the the guy in the first part but uh not to put you on the spot margaret no pressure or anything but i feel like you're a good person to answer a part of that question well it is apparent that um that there there is a lot of fear about coming out in favor of revealing uh government secrets now this is kind of new i mean reporters used to feel that that part of their work that they were doing was to reveal government secrets because those are the things that that mostly government secrets hide crimes and if you don't get that information out then the government can become a law breaker so what has happened is that journalists i think have become frightened of talking about the situation with assange of talking about the limitations on national security journalism of talking about whether the mass media is controlled by these speakers who only talk who are experts and ex-government employees and who who is talking about this who is in control of the situation how do we break through and get more journalists to do answer and to do the investigation that is necessary to break this through i mean it's a real it's a real question and it's a media question and the issue here is i mean yes it used to be that that we could get enough people out on the streets to have an effect publicly but this is really more serious than that because this is a silencing of the media that is really significant and preventing uh investigation of the crimes that the governments are committed the crimes that the government committed against julian assange and and Pompeo in his speech specifically made an effort to limit the first amendment and to criminalize any any journalist who spoke who who talks about national security issues and that's really frightening and i think that that's the issue here is that we have to get the the journalists involved because they're the ones who are in danger and understandably they're afraid of saying anything and doing doing the work that they should be doing okay just tory is that going to answer your question well um yeah it kind of does but you know like i do it all the time obviously i get cancelled i just come back and again and again but i i think it's time we put more pressure on to these journalists i call them out i tell them you've made so much money with what he has given you you are able to see the atrocities why aren't you pushing harder why aren't you going back to the beginning if we all start at 2016 as journalists we would be able to provide more uh you know and and that's the thing marches letters like you know maybe on the 31st of august we can organize a whole us march i know there's a lot of people that would come out for that for him it's really important we have transparency and i understand yes secrets are to conceal crimes but in this digital age nothing is hidden so thank you margaret ben i think you were about to chime in there i was attempting to chime in uh tory you know if you've got uh people that are following you that are looking to do more to help julian uh if they go to assangedefense.org and click on the button at the top it says take action there's a place to put in your email address uh there are actions that occur on a regular basis uh the next one coming up is a coordinated banner drop in about 50 locations around the country um to try to get the you know the mainstream media to to notice. okay i have a quick question one more question from stuff can i say something hey um i would like to coordinate with you on that because when we had issues before we dropped you know uh what is it billboards all over the united states maybe we can coordinate in synchrony globally to do this i agree thank you yeah absolutely okay we have a another quick question um can us can us completins ask the us investigators to question some of the government sources which talked to yahoo news about cia assassination plans against julian assange and to ask about uc global well let me hit that one it's understand that when we're in the us we're in a civil litigation so there's no us investigators this is not we don't have the fbi we don't have the us attorneys often involved it is a litigation between between litigants civil litigants so we could conduct our own discovery and try to find out from yahoo who they learned it from but i don't think yahoo is going to tell us and that really is not the focus of this lawsuit this lawsuit certainly um the byproduct is bringing a tech bringing attention to what's going on with with with effective journalism but the focus of this lawsuit is just not to allow the the government to trounce over its citizens by without a search warrant just looking at everything they have so this lawsuit again there aren't investigators we don't have we don't have regulators we don't have any kind of um fbi or any kind of um authority here uh but it may be something that is worth looking into um certainly if if if the government did as yahoo reports um attempt or even considered assassinating someone um for reporting that's something that the government may want to look at we're not that's not we're looking at okay and richard you know with your your uh hundreds of years of experience i know you can't totally tell but if you had to guess on a timeline how soon before you think we'll hear back from the judge you think this will be quicker so i'm not a betting person but i would give the over under to be sometime by the end of september early october i'd say before halloween and after um labor day so it'll be the court's gonna have to spend some time on this okay and then kathy vogan you've been so patient and you've been helping to close this thing you have a question you and then we're gonna i think we're gonna need to close it up folks but kathy what what don't we make you the final question you're muted you're muted kathy kathy you're muted kathy vogan sorry i'm somebody who really likes the nitty gritty and what we have in the el pace uh article that has just come out is one screenshot but there are mentions of other folders such as ladies toilet now i'm not trying to be funny but that's where julien the sage went to conduct with his lawyers to conduct legally privileged conversations what we see in the screenshot however um you can just look at the thread and of course ceia is one of the folders and then you have embassy and then you have people's names so um my question is is it possible to get a little bit more of that um especially ladies toilet um in the hope that some of your names are going to come up would that help you in your case or is it too late now to put anything more in which i'll that will help us we have to get over this legal hurdle which is the motion to dismiss but yes that is information which is if you will phase two of any trial you have your pleadings in motions of any case you have your pleadings in motions you have your discovery then you have your trial in the discovery phase phase two that's the stuff we want to know we want to know there are there have been allegations in both an alpais and i believe in even even the affidavits that there were microphones in the ladies bathroom which over her joined assange's conversations if the ceia was doing that that is outrageous so that is stuff that we do want to learn during the discovery phase and we we're very fortunate in one way because a lot of the information we want we believe has been obtained in spain so um our goal is to is to get that information um not listen the press reporting is pretty startling but you're right um kathy getting that actual evidence is going to be very revealing and that's our goal yes but surely isn't uh if you had something like that i mean that's what a lot of these questions have been about wouldn't wouldn't that information be that evidence be a lot more compelling um to persuade judge coto to say yes this should not be dismissed it absolutely would but the ceia does things discreetly the ceia does not uh broadcast um it's it's private so we have to dig um we have to dig we have to dig deep and and we and what we've learned thus far from these affidavits from what el país has said and just the filings in spain um have given us have really encouraged us they've encouraged us that there's a lot more out there and we're going to keep digging um until we get it that i think that's a great way to wrap up the uh wrap up the press conference i want to thank everybody for joining i do want to let journalists know um please email me trevorfg at protonmail.com trevorfg at protonmail.com if you'd like a copy of the press release i think i have most of you but um do email me just in case so i can make sure i get it to you um and then my phone number is area code 704 775 0487 in case anybody would like to interview any of our panelists um ben cohen thank you for joining us deb richard margaret you guys are the best and i want a special shout out to consortium news joe and kathy for hosting and thank you all for for joining us take care bye bye thanks thank you everyone