 I was there when this extradition treaty was reached. It was concluded behind the backs of Parliament during the summer recess, when no Member of Parliament could question the treaty which David Blunkett, Tony Blair's Home Secretary, corruptly and secretly concluded with the United States, a one-sided extradition treaty, the likes of which no free country would ever sign with any other country. Well they'd never have to send anybody to us, whatever they've done, even if it's killing a young boy on a motorway because you're driving up the wrong side of the road. You don't have to send anybody to us, but we will send anybody to you without even just cause having to be produced. But when Parliament returned in the autumn, I bearded David Blunkett in the Members' Lobby and told them all the things that I thought were wrong and dangerous with this extradition treaty and he said to me, you're worrying unnecessarily because all of the points you're making are taken care of by Article 4.1 of the treaty which precludes the extradition of people in Britain for political offences to the United States. And now the judge is telling us that although that's on the face of the treaty, it does not apply. What madness is this? If we allow Julian Assange to be sent for the rest of his life, into the dungeons of the US injustice system, journalism, freedom, freedom of speech, democracy itself will have been murdered in plain sight on our watch. And that's why we are going to fight and fight and fight again to free Julian Assange, free Julian Assange. Get out your notebook, please. Welcome to C.N. Live, Episode 6. Sorry, Season 6, Episode 5, The Assange Dilemma for the United States. I'm Joe Laurier, Editor-in-Chief of Consortium News. And I'm Elizabeth Boss. The High Court's ruling on Tuesday in London has posed a dilemma for the Biden administration. It must provide written assurances to Britain that it will respect Julian Assange's First Amendment rights if it wants to have him extradited to the US as early as next month. Without that assurance, the High Court said it would allow Assange to appeal the Home Office's extradition order on three grounds related to his First Amendment rights and protection against the death penalty. If the US wants him now, it must promise to allow him those rights, otherwise it will have to battle it out in an appeals process that will drag on for at least another year or more. The Biden Department of Justice thus must weigh the pros and cons of delivering the assurances on the First Amendment and the death penalty by April 16 to have him extradited or missed the deadline and go through with fighting the appeal. Allowing Assange his First Amendment rights, which the US has threatened to deprive him of, could possibly become part of his defense at trial and perhaps set up a constitutional challenge of the Espionage Act, under which Assange is being charged and which clearly conflicts with protected speech. After the US lost the initial judgment in a lower court in January 2021, barring Assange's extradition based on his health and the conditions of US prisons, the court allowed the US to issue written assurances that it would not mistreat Assange in custody. These were conditional on Assange's behavior, however. Amnesty International said the assurances were not worth the paper they were written on. Nevertheless, the High Court accepted those assurances carte blanche without allowing Assange's lawyers to challenge their validity in court and overturned the ruling barring extradition. The UK Supreme Court then refused Assange's application to challenge the assurances and the case went to the Home Secretary who promptly signed the extradition order. Assange is now trying to appeal that order. His application for appeal will most likely be denied by the High Court if the US delivers on the assurances. It was the same High Court, though with different judges that accepted the US assurances without challenge the first time. One thing is different this time, however. The High Court on Tuesday ruled that Assange's lawyers will be able to challenge the credibility of US assurances in written submissions. The US would then have two weeks to respond in writing to those challenges. Though it might seem unlikely, given the bias shown towards the US by British judges so far in this case, there is an outside chance that the US assurances would be thrown out. Presuming that they aren't, Assange could then be on a plane to the US on May 20, the preliminary date for a hearing on this matter, barring a last minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. So would it be better, would it better serve Biden's interest to miss the April 16 deadline for the assurances in order to keep Assange in Belmarsh a while longer, despite the risk that the US could lose on appeal? The last thing Biden needs in the midst of his reelection campaign is to have a journalist arrive on American shores in chains to stand trial outside Washington for publishing true information about US state crimes. Donald Trump, whose administration had Assange arrested and dited and thrown into Belmarsh, would most likely, hypocritically, make much out of Biden prosecuting a journalist. Trump would understand that some voters who support Assange might switch their support to him, and that his own base is made up of libertarians who support Assange's constitutional rights. So it might be very much in Biden's interest to miss the deadline for the assurances to prevent Assange from coming to the US before the election, even though the 66-page ruling by two High Court judges on Tuesday was in most ways favorable to the United States. For instance, the Court on Tuesday rejected outright the most substantive and significant points raised by Assange's barristers at a two-day hearing heard on February 20th and 21st. It rejected six grounds and all. The argument that the Home Secretary's extradition order was incompatible with the US-UK extradition treaty that bars extradition for political offenses. The High Court also rejected that Assange was being prosecuted for his political opinions in violation of the UK-US extradition Act. These two points would mean that Assange's revelations of US war crimes are now irrelevant to his case, as the Court does not find his case to be political. Significantly, Tuesday's ruling did not allow Assange to introduce new evidence in the case that came to light after the lower court ruling, namely that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had had asylum before being arrested and thrown into Belmarsh prison where he continues to languish. In the middle of this came word last week from The Wall Street Journal that US prosecutors and Assange's lawyers have discussed the parameters of a possible plea deal, though it seems those talks have stalled. Constitutional lawyer Bruce Affron, who was one of our guests on today's show, last August told CN Live that Assange could plead guilty to mishandling classified information, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of five years, which happens to be how long Julian Assange has served already in Belmarsh on remand, and that he could and should enter the pleas remotely from London and not go to the US to do it where the US could change its mind once he got there. Joining Bruce Affron on today's program is Marjorie Cohn, a law professor and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, Craig Murray, a former British ambassador was close to Julian Assange and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges. Welcome everybody and thanks for coming. Marjorie, let's start with you since we know you have to go to another meeting after this. Could you just first give me your your quick take on the ruling on Tuesday as you read it? Well, a difference here between this ruling and the last time that Elizabeth mentioned that the US provided assurances that Assange would be treated humanely if extra died to the United States is that these assurances, the High Court panel said, have to be satisfactory and so they would if the Biden administration came through with a with assurances then there would be a hearing and on whether they're satisfactory and the defense Assange's legal team would be able to challenge that. Now in terms of the three issues, do you want me to go through the three issues or do you want me to just? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, all right. I do want to say that the earlier stage when these assurances were provided by the US and they were accepted without an at face value by the High Court and the High Court reversed the denial of extradition that the lower court had ordered based on humane grounds. They didn't really deal with the fact that the US actually has a history of reneging on similar assurances. The US lies. They say, yes, we'll ensure humane treatment and this happened in a case with a person in Spain was extradited to the United States after US gave assurances and those assurances were violated. One of the things that the panel said in this recent decision is that there is an opportunity to challenge these assurances if the US comes forward with them, quote, Mr. Assange will not therefore be extradited immediately unquote. That implies to me that in the absence of that claim, then he would be extradited immediately. He would immediately be put on a plane. Briefly, the three grounds that Assange is allowed to raise on appeal, assuming that Biden doesn't come forward with assurances or those assurances are not satisfactory is, first of all, his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights would be violated because he would be denied to the ability to raise the First Amendment in his trial. And they, the panel said the First Amendment is very similar to Article 10 of the European Convention. Gordon Cromberg, who is a prosecutor who would be prosecuting Assange if he were extradited, said that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections of the First Amendment. Mike Pompeo, former CIA director, said that Assange has no First Amendment freedoms because he's not a US citizen and the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that foreign citizens outside the US territory don't possess rights under the Constitution. But let's assume that the US, that Biden, the Biden administration does give assurances that his, he would be able to raise the First Amendment and that the court found that those were significant assurances. That really doesn't mean anything because one of the things that the British courts don't understand is the US doctrine of separation of powers. I mean, we're just dealing here with the executive branch. The prosecutors can give all the assurances they want, but the judiciary, another one of these three branches of government in the US, doesn't have to abide by the executive branch claim or assurance. So, and one of the things that the high courts, the panel on the high court said is that Assange would argue at trial that his actions are protected by the First Amendment, quote, he contends that if he's given the First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defense. And so that's why they are giving Assange another shot at possibly raising this issue on appeal, the First Amendment issue. Then the second issue, the UK Extradition Act forbids discrimination based on nationality. Julian Assange is an Australian citizen. If he's extradited to the US, he would be tried in US courts. And the Extradition Act bars extradition if an individual might be prejudiced due to his nationality and due to the centrality of the First Amendment to his defense. The panel noted if he's not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he'll thereby be prejudiced potentially very greatly prejudiced by reason of his nationality. That's the second issue. The third issue is that there are inadequate safeguards or assurances that he wouldn't be sentenced to death if he was sent to the US. The UK Extradition Act says that the Secretary of State, this is in the UK, must not order a person's extradition if he could be, will be, or has been sentenced to death unless there's a written assurance that's adequate that says that a sentence of death either will not be imposed or will not be carried out if imposed. Now, none of the charges that Julian Assange is facing right now carry the death penalty, but he could be extradited to the US and then charged with aiding and abetting treason or espionage both of which carry the death penalty. And Ben Watson, KC, who's the Secretary of State for the UK Home Department, admitted the facts alleged against Assange could sustain a charge of aiding or abetting treason or espionage. And that if he's extradited, there's nothing to prevent a charge of aiding or abetting treason or a charge of espionage from being added to the indictment. And the death penalty is available for those two crimes. Now, Donald Trump, you know, it's hard to know what he's going to say at any given time. But when he was asked, when he was before he became president about WikiLeaks leaking the documents, he said, this is Donald Trump, quote, I think it was disgraceful. I think there should be a death penalty or something unquote. Now, the president of the United States is not supposed to control the Department of Justice. They're supposed to be independent. But Donald Trump doesn't follow those rules. And so he could, if Julian Assange is extradited, if Trump is elected president, he could prevail upon the Justice Department to add one of those charges that would make him eligible for the death penalty, regardless of any assurances that the Biden Justice Department gives. And so there is a possibility that, and Joe kind of alluded to this in a different way, that instead of filing assurances, the Biden administration will opt to avoid the political pitfalls of Assange being extradited to the U.S. before the election and actually offer a plea bargain with credit for time served to end the case. Right. So before we move on to Craig, thank you for that. I want to ask you what are the standards that the court, these two judges will use to judge whether these assurances are satisfactory. I should note that it's very significant that these judges are at least giving Assange's lawyers the right to challenge the validity and the credibility of the assurance, which they were not given that right the first time when the high court accepted those assurances, as you say, carte blanche. What are the standards that the, obviously they're going to look at the language, the language in those other assurances was very conditional. What will they be looking for, Marjorie? Well, this whole idea of what significant assurances are, what is significant, I mean, is very subjective. And there's really, I don't think there's any clear standard, clear and convincing evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt or anything like that that I know of. And so it's really going to come down to the subjective views of the high court judges at that hearing, assuming Biden presents any assurances about whether or not those assurances are satisfactory. And I hope and suspect and am pretty confident that the Assange defense will argue that there is a separation of powers doctrine in the United States, which means that regardless of what assurances the executive branch through the Department of Justice, the prosecutors provide, whether they are significant or not are not worth the paper that they're written on because the judiciary, a separate branch of government can overrule them. The Marjorie, but I know you have to go, so I'm going to ask you one more before we move on to Craig. How reluctant do you think the Biden DOJ will be to allow the First Amendment rights to Julian Assange? How crucial would that be in his defense and would it also possibly set up a challenge of the constitutionality of the Espionage Act? Because this seems very significant that they are demanding that the U.S. promise that they allow him these First Amendment rights. They could certainly at trial, if it goes to Alexander, could say that use that, can't his lawyers, Assange's lawyers use that? Yes, certainly the First Amendment goes to the heart of Julian Assange's defense. If he has a right to free expression and freedom of speech, then what he did would what he what he's accused of doing would not violate the law. So it's very central to his defense as the High Court panel noted. And for that reason, it's probably likely that the prosecution is going to argue, consistent with what the Supreme Court has said, that foreign nationals don't have a constitutional rights. So I think that that is really a critical argument. And I think you're right, Joe. I think it very likely could set up a challenge to the Espionage Act, that it's unconstitutional. Sorry, they won't get him if they don't promise that he's has those rights, though. I mean, this is. But again, they can promise anything they want. And that doesn't mean they won't go back on it. They won't renew on it. Okay. All right. I was afraid you were going to say that. Craig, can you weigh in on this, your general thoughts, and then respond to anything that we said in our opening and to Marjorie? The first significant point is that it's not true that they won't necessarily get him unless they provide the significant assurances because there's another phase. What the court has said is that he has the right to appeal on these points unless assurances are received. If those assurances are received, his right to appeal falls and is extradited. If the court considers the assurances sufficient. If the assurances are not sufficient, it doesn't mean he's not extradited. It means he has a right to appeal those points. Right. There's been a hearing substantively on those points, and whether they're strong enough to prevent the extradition. So it's perfectly possible, for example, that on his right to rely on the First Amendment, that the assurances as to no discrimination by nationality are not satisfactory. Therefore, he's allowed to appeal on that point. But it was substantive hearing at that point. They come to a decision that wasn't a strong enough point to stop the entire extradition. So the assurances could fail and he could still be extradited. And I think it's very important to realise that. And I can actually see that happening. I can see the prosecution arguing that, well, no, we can't because it's up to the judge. We cannot give firm assurance. We can assure, for example, the prosecution won't raise the point. But that still doesn't mean the judge isn't going to follow that supreme's court decision in USA versus open society and rule he doesn't have those rights. But we can promise the prosecution won't trust it. But we can't bind the judge. But we are a democracy where the United States, the United Kingdom's ally, we're a category two power under the extradition act of a safe place to go. We believe in a rule of law. You can safely lead this to the judge. The judge will give it a fair hearing, the fair decision. And the court may say, yeah, that's okay. But it's not any definite discrimination by nationality here. Or they could argue it's not discrimination by nationality as such. Every country treats non-citizens and citizens in a different way when outside the country as regards consular detection and all kinds of things. So this is not an unusual discrimination by nationality. All kinds of arguments they can put forward, which frankly aren't very strong, but which the court had decided to accept even in the absence of assurances. And given some of the crazy things they've accepted so far, like the idea that the no political offenses, the idea that the no political offenses bar in the treaty doesn't apply because it's not been incorporated into UK domestic law, for example. I wouldn't put it at all past them to stretch to saying, okay, they couldn't provide that assurance, but nonetheless the appeal doesn't succeed on that point once it's actually heard in the substantive hearing on the 20th of May. I think it's actually very surprising that no assurance has been given on the death penalty because that's absolutely routine. It happens in loads of expeditions. It's normal. It's a template. It's taken two minutes to do it. They're used to doing that. And there's no reason not to give it bluntly. They actually don't want to execute Julian. They want to keep him entombed for life, incarcerated in the kind of slow death in which he's a warning to other journalists as opposed to providing a martyr through execution. So they could easily give that assurance. And in fact, they haven't given that assurance. I think there's strong evidence that I think there's strong evidence that they are trying to just spin it out until after the election. But the assurance on the death penalty is different. The assurance, I said they could not give a satisfactory assurance against nationality by discrimination. But the court could then still rule that isn't actually nationality by discrimination and still let him be extradited. Assurance on the death penalty is in a different category. You absolutely cannot extradite without assurance on the death penalty. So they have to give that one. And they will give it by the deadline. They'll go right up to the deadline, but they will give it on the deadline. I'm sure that one will be given. And one last point, and I could talk for hours, but there are many people to talk. One last point is the significance of saying that the treaty provision against political offences does not apply. Because the judgment makes it absolutely plain that that applies to all the 156 extradition treaties which the UK has, which bar extradition for political offence. So what they're saying is, you know, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China, you have dissidents here, come and get them because we are not going to apply the no political offence extradition for extradition provision of any of those treaties. And the ramifications of that, you know, are many of the horrible ramifications for freedom in this case as a whole. Thank you. We'll come back to you, Craig. Chris Hedges. Well, I think we have to remember that the extradition request was only pushed forward after the exposure of the vault seven documents which expose the CIA's ability to hack into our phones, computers, cars and use them as listening, recording devices, even when they're turned off. And so I think it's very probable that if, and of course, this is not part of the extradition request, but I think it's very probable that if he is extradited those charges will be added to the indictment. So the engine behind this is clearly the CIA and they have a vested interest in seeing that Julian is punished for this security breach. That's when you got the statements by then CIA Director Mike Pompeo that WikiLeaks is a hostile intelligence agency. I'm mauling the quote a little bit. But, and we have to remember that that's the engine driving this. It's not coming out of the Biden White House. Of course, it was Trump who demanded the extradition. It is really coming out of the CIA. And I think much of what happens to Julian is going to be colored by the character of the CIA. The CIA is in essence not an intelligence gathering agency. It's a paramilitary force. That's primarily what it does. That's why they discussed assassinating or kidnapping Julian because that's what they do. That's what they know how to do. That's what they do all over the globe. And I think that that factor is very important because that, you know, the CIA is not crossed by any elected official. Diane Feinstein tried to do that. And it didn't when this was on the torture because they're running black sites and we're torturing. And I'll always remember that press conference where she walked out very ashen and they had like tapped into our computers. And I mean, they sabotaged the entire investigation. And Feinstein, who's no flaming liberal, frankly, was appalled that and said, you know, you can't remember the exact words, but it was something like you cannot cross these people. So this is an extremely important factor in what's happening to Julian. And I think that we can be very sure that the impetus behind the extradition and the the demands for extradition supersede the Democratic Party and come out of the intelligence agency. And there's no question that if extradited, he will be hit with those charges for Vol 7, which right now are not part of the indictment. So that that, you know, makes me very pessimistic about Julian's chances because I think the CIA is determined to make him pay as a kind of example. And so we're not really talking about the Iraqi war logs anymore. We're not talking about the Bedesta emails. We're talking about something in the eyes of, you know, the the the power, especially the deep state power, something far, far, far more serious. And and that's why I, you know, is it is it advantageous for Biden to keep him locked up in Belmarsh, of course. But I don't think it's I don't think Biden's driving this. Why do you think they didn't put that into that show? Yes. Yes. In 2017, it wasn't just the CIA, Donald Trump himself personally asked for options to kidnap and or kill Julian Assange. So Chris, why didn't Donald Trump's administration in 2017, 2018, when they indicted Julian Assange for the war crimes he that WikiLeaks exposed in 2010, 2011, why didn't they include those vault seven charges then? I mean, that's a that's a good question. I and I which of course I can't answer, why didn't they include them? I don't I don't think they needed them. They they they already had a kind of process in place by which they could charge him. I think I think there's no question that if he was extradited, the exposure of vault seven would be added. I just don't see how that's but why they didn't do it probably because they didn't need to. I wonder do they the Espionage Act does carry a death penalty in time of war? Isn't that correct? Or am I wrong there? Yes, it does. So I don't know why would the could Marjorie said earlier you'd have to have other charges. I think it was Marjorie that we have to have other charges added. He's not charged with espionage per se. He's charged with offenses under the espionage. But he's not charged with espionage. If he was charged with espionage, then it would carry the death penalty. I see. Okay, Bruce Affron. Bruce was a way ahead of the game on this plea of deal. And he told us back in August last year that a drilling could plead guilty to mishandling official information or classified information. That's a five year maximum term. And he's already served those five years in Belmarsh. And he also said that, what did he say? He said that he could remotely do this plea from here in London rather than going back to the US where the US could change their mind. So Bruce, I want you first, if you want to weigh in on what we've been discussing, your reading, because you read the 66 page ruling. What is your overall assessment? Then I want to talk to you about the plea deal because you were ahead of the game there. Sure. Thanks Joe. I think the decision was very predictable once the US representative conceded that they can't control the death penalty in this case. Obviously, UK law bars extradition if the death penalty is available. And it was a rather extraordinary thing for the US representative to say, well, if the Trump administration comes into office, they may seek the death penalty based on new charges, similar to what Chris is alluding to. And to me, that was an extraordinary concession, probably unnecessary because it's somewhat speculative. And I read it as the Biden administration trying to get a denial of extradition to get off the hook, so to speak. Australia is pushing heavily for Julian to be sent back home. Australia is a critical US defense ally. And I'm reading it a little differently. I'm reading it that that concession was made to set up the basis for a denial by the court in the UK. Because clearly, if the death penalty is available, there can be no extradition. And it looks to me, and the decision was very predictable once that concession was made. So I see it as the US is trying to kind of get out of a difficult position by making the very concession that would block extradition. With respect to it, first of all, there's no way anyone can guarantee there won't be a death penalty sought. Clearly, a future Justice Department could do that. By the time Julian were actually extradited, processed, given pretrial proceedings, there's still plenty of time for a Trump administration to do just that, seek the death penalty on new charges. So there's no way to guarantee against it. I think that concession was right. I think it was also offered to have a legal way out of this problem. With regard to the First Amendment, I think, as Marjorie said, the whole concept of an assurance ignores the separation of powers. That's very correct. Clearly, no administration representative, whether it's a UK lawyer or an American lawyer, can say that a court is going to respect First Amendment defenses in charges of this nature. It's up to the court to make that decision. We're in a very novel area of law. Journalists have never been prosecuted before for this type of issue. Julian certainly falls arguably in the category of a journalist, so does WikiLeaks. There's no way to predict whether First Amendment defenses will be allowed. The court itself made the point that on its face anyway, he's not being prosecuted in the US for speech violations, but rather for the taking of data illegally or information illegally. Right there, there's an issue, will the First Amendment ever be respected in this case? There's absolutely no way, any assurance, let alone what the court wants, a significant assurance can be given. No administration can guarantee that. We're in a field of law never explored before in the US, and there's absolutely no way one can argue that the First Amendment defense will be allowed. Forgetting entirely whether a foreign national can assert those rights. If Julian's actions occurred outside the US, there is an argument that the First Amendment wouldn't have applied in the first place. However, part of Julian's actions occurred while he was in the US, and the First Amendment logically should apply no matter what. But there's no way to guarantee what a court will say in an unusual situation like this. Dan Ellsberg was prosecuted for similar offenses, but not the New York Times, not the Washington Post. So we have no knowledge based on any precedent whether the First Amendment will be respected. So my gut feeling is, in May, there's going to be no capacity to give a significant assurance on either ground. Actually, Nixon administration impaneled the grand jury in Boston to indict Neil Sheehan and the other Times reporters, and it fell through because they discovered, it was discovered that the FBI had wiretapped Ellsberg's phone, so the reporters came forward and said, wait a minute, we were talking on the phone, so you were wiretapping us too. That's how that collapsed. So there have been attempts, including by FDR during the Second World War of the Chicago Tribune, published some cables that Japan had, that unencrypted cables from Japan on the midway incident. So, but this is the first successful prosecution. Given what you said, there's no case law allowing it. No, it didn't happen. Right. There was no indictment. They tried, but this is the first time someone's been indictment. Given what you said about the US trying to get Biden or the US administration trying to get out of this, what does that say about a possible police still being a valid possibility in the middle of all of this with the High Court? Because that's still happened. Right. Well, let me just say this. Obviously, what I'm saying differs somewhat from what Chris was saying because it suggests that there's an intelligence community imperative at work. There could be, but I think there's also a political diplomatic imperative at work in which the administration is trying to get out of that vice. The intelligence community wants this. I think the administration is looking for a way around it, and that's where they gave these concessions in the court in Britain. With regard to a plea, Julian is not really a fugitive. He was in the US. He announced what he was doing. He stuck around for a while. Nobody launched charges against him, and he left. He's not an American. He has no duty to come back. So, he doesn't really meet the standard of being a fugitive. So, that's not going to bar a remote plea. It's a concept no one's really paid attention to. Julian has the ability to do a remote plea, and it is absolutely permitted by the rules, not usually done, but he can do it. A conspiracy to mishandle or aid in the mishandling of protected information carries a five-year term. He's already served five years. The plea can be entered, time served can be represented, and he goes off to Australia. I assume the Brits don't want him there anymore, so I think he'd be going to Australia. There's absolutely nothing barring that plea, and it would make sense. It would at least achieve the legal message the government wanted, or at least the Trump administration wanted, and it would get the US out of a difficult diplomatic and political problem. I got to point out, if Julian is prosecuted, it creates a storm under the Constitution, and it's uncontrollable and no one knows where it will go. So, I think the government has every incentive to try to set it up so that there is pressure to do a plea and likely lose the extradition hearing at the same time. He would have to plead to a conspiracy to mishandle classified material with Chelsea Manning. That's one charge. He could plead to aiding and abetting someone else to do that. You don't need the conspiracy charge necessarily. But all of that would carry prison time equal to what he served, and there's a very simple solution. He's already served five years in prison. Let's not forget that, that all we need is the conviction. Since I think a judge is not likely to give him more time than that anyway, this is a solution that should satisfy everyone. And I have to agree, Julian should not come back to the US. Our prison system cannot be trusted to behave gently in this situation. Let me just— Let me just— Jonathan Pollard's experience, for example, was rough, and Julian will be in the same category. I just want to make one point, and I think Joe would back this up, is that that posits that the decision by the prosecution not to offer those guarantees was intentional. And I think one of the things that struck Joe Craig, myself, who sat through the two days of hearings was how amateurish and ill-informed and sloppy the prosecution was. In fact, at one point, they were simply reading. And after David by Gordon Cromberg from 2020, making all sorts of accusations, they'd already been disproved. So it does come down to intent. And I'm not a hundred percent like Joe and Craig, because they were both there. I didn't walk away that the prosecution, after listening to them for two full days, completely knew what they were doing. Well, the absence of James Lewis— Sorry, I just thought Bruce wanted— the absence of James Lewis, a far more experienced prosecutor, really did show up. Sorry, Bruce. Well, I wasn't there, obviously. I don't have that insight on it. But just reading the reports afterwards, I was struck as a lawyer by that concession. It's the one thing that would guarantee the inability of the British court to do this. And by the way, the British probably don't want to tick off the Australians too much either. So it almost, to my mind, maybe amateurism is the answer. They were not looking to forcefully defend their case. That's just how I read it as an observer who saw the reports on that concession. It struck me as a lawyer that way, that you don't make that admission unless you're trying to get out of the problem. Yeah, I think on the diplomatic assurances, you've got to remember that there's nothing you feel like special about the case of Julian Assange in this sense, that if you're saying, well, the administration can't guarantee the behavior of any future administration, well, that's true in any case. And if you're saying we can't guarantee the behavior of the courts, that's true in any case. And the United States regularly gives guarantees against the death sentence and to the UK and to other European powers, because almost all of Europe, it has to give that kind of guarantee before it can extradite any serious criminal. So it's never stopped them before, and it would stop all of them. You know, the point you make would stop them ever doing it again and ever being able to extradite a serious criminal from the US against. So they're not going to stick with that. There will be a guarantee against the death penalty. I'm sure it will come in at the last minute. I could be wrong, we will see. But and the other thing point I want to make is this the diplomatic assurances thing that there's a big legal literature on it. If you if Google the weight of diplomatic assurances in the UK in particular, there's a big legal literature on and again, it's not only the United States, the United Kingdom receives diplomatic assurances that it won't mistreat people from Saudi Arabia and from Jordan and from all kinds of countries where everybody knows that this is nonsense. And these have no weight whatsoever, but they are accepted because otherwise we never be able to extradite anyone. That's the way the courts look at it. And the and they actually say it was stated in court and stated by the judges. And I believe it's stated in this judgment. It was certainly stated in Beretser's judgment that the extradite that assurances by the extraditing country must be taken in good faith, that the good faith of the state with which you have an extradition treaty has to be the fundamental assumption. And that's it was early asked how the court will deal with it and and the court will give any balance of doubt it can to to the United States. And I say it's a worldwide thing. I mean, there are literally hundreds of examples of state that there's an awful one in Jordan where they gave assurances they wouldn't mistreat someone and then they tortured them to death. It's a regular problem. And everyone knows these assurances are meaningless, but they are nonetheless a very controversial fiction in in in in our legal system of which the courts are very fond and they're not going to be abandoned in this case. I think I think I'd agree with that. But on the first amendment issue, I don't see how any assurance could possibly be given as a matter of law in the US. There's no way to say a court will accept such defenses. Because on its face, the law doesn't recognize the First Amendment defenses. And so I think you're right, the diplomatic assurances are routinely given. But here, the assurance of an actual defense under the Constitution, I don't think could be given. But to Craig's point, that's absolutely right. They always say the death penalty won't be given. And that's why it struck me as so incredible that they said we can't guarantee it this time. And then that's why I took the position I did that normally they do say that all of a sudden they can't. It seems to me they're they're setting it up for a fall, so to speak. And that solves an immense problem for everybody. Elizabeth, you have some questions, I believe. Sure. Yeah, Chris, I liked your article and especially your point you made earlier about the CIA being the engine behind this persecution of Assange. And I just wanted to ask you to comment on the judges prohibiting the submission of new evidence relating to the CIA's plan to kidnap or assassinate Assange after they had already spied on private meetings with his lawyers, his doctors, and practically everyone who visited him. Well, they dismissed it because it was journalism. It wasn't like they had an internal document. And, you know, what they those three points that they have allowed him to pursue are all technicalities, fairly minor technicalities. I mean, I just and I, you know, Craig and Joe were also in the court. But I read the response on the part of the prosecution as not willful. But they didn't know because remember the judges kept pressing them more than once on both the First Amendment issue and on the death penalty. And there was one point where one of the prosecutors and remember, she just went off in this kind of long, almost incomprehensible diatribe. And I think they didn't know. I don't I don't think it was intentional. You were both in the courtroom. I don't know what you think. I couldn't tell I just couldn't go. Craig, I'd be interested to know what Craig asked to say. I was a bit surprised about her reading the Cromberg affidavit on and on, like I had nothing better to say. And on the death penalty, it was pretty extraordinary when Watson, the lawyer for the Home Secretary, actually admitted that they'd never asked the US for the assurance what they're supposed to do. They never made a request for this assurance. And I was flabbergasted by that. I don't know the explanation except maybe the one that Bruce is offering. I was surprised that the prosecution seemed very weak. Dominion in particular seemed extremely weak, whether she'd actually seemed, although she was the number two, she'd seen very, very strong and forceful in Neil Bailey and the extradition hearings. And I found it peculiar. And I felt she'd lost belief in her own case, which came over to me. But they could tell they were doing badly and they were doing particularly badly. And I I can prove this because I wrote it and published it. But I could tell what this judgment was going to be. It was obvious from the judge's questions. And this judgment was exactly what what I predicted it would be, that they would be allowed to leave to appeal on these two points only. And that came over because the prosecution really made made no effort to answer. But there's one important point we haven't touched on, I think, and that's the they did take the Yahoo news stuff quite quite seriously because the standard, I think Mark Summers argued successfully that the standard of proof required in an extradition hearing is like the standard of proof in an asylum claim. You're not looking not looking for sort of criminal standard of proof that the evidence is true. You're looking for a balance of probability that has this person proven a fear of persecution. And so they accepted in, if you like, the basic truths in the Yahoo news report. But then they came to this astonishing conclusion, which I think will go down in British legal history with a paragraph that says that it may well be that the UK, that the United States was planning to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange. But if we extradite him, they won't need to kidnap or assassinate him, and therefore it is okay, which has a piece of legal reasoning. This person was trying to kidnap you, but if we give you to them, then they won't need to kidnap you, therefore it's fine. It was absolutely breathtaking. It really is a paragraph I had to read four or five times in order to believe it said what it did say. Paragraph 210 of the 66 page document. It is an unbelievable statement. Elizabeth, I re-interrupted. Go ahead. Marjorie, I believe, has just let us. But yeah, and I think that is an amazing, amazing paragraph. And also I wonder, Chris, you're mentioning as well that regarding the CIA's attempt to extra-judicially attack Assange, what would prevent the US, basically the deep state going after Assange if he did go back to Australia? If he was set free, how could he ever really be safe? I doubt the intelligence community would allow him to ever publish anything, speak out ever again. I can't imagine that they would allow that. No. I mean, look, I had to cover the CIA as a foreign reporter. I watched them work in places like El Salvador and it's murder Inc. These are really, they recruit now primarily out of the special forces. 60,000 members of the US military are part of the special forces, seals, rangers, etc. They function really frankly as death squads. I mean, that's, you have to remember the character of the people who are driving this extradition. And it's not Biden or the Democrats. I agree with what Bruce and everyone has said, that Biden doesn't want it. I mean, they'd have to really be out of their minds at this point, given how precarious their political situation is. But the power of the CIA is such that it is really unaccountable. It is a state within a state. And I think it's very clear that they are determined to make Julian pay. And the best way is to make him pay is to, I think as Craig said, entomb him in Florence for the rest of his life. And I guess I'm just more pessimistic about where we're headed than others. And I really read the court refusal to give those guarantees. And I, of course, a lot of it was the in the inflection of their voice that they didn't know. They weren't prepared to give those guarantees. And both of the lawyers were not very competent. And they just were on the spot. And the judges, of course, pressed them. But they didn't have instructions as to whether those guarantees could be provided. And so that's how I read it. They didn't provide them. You know, I'd like to comment on that. The most important issue in these cases is the death penalty. I mean, this is the, in English law, anyway, this is the starting point of the analysis frequently. I mean, if the death penalty is available, there can be no extradition. No one could be ignorant of that. So it's shock strikes me that any competent attorney would have made that inquiry and been prepared. So that's why I think in a sense it's almost a setup because it's just so shocking that nobody would make that inquiry. It's almost as if, and they went further than that. They said, well, the Trump administration could impose those charges with the death penalty. So they went further than saying they don't know. They went out of their way to say it could happen. And I just can't believe any competent attorney would not have prepared on that one point. It's a major issue in extradition. And so, at least from England and the UK, rather. So it just strikes me as something that was almost set up. And you see this sometimes in cases where the government wants to get out of a prosecution and it does things that will let that happen. And everyone kind of goes away. So it's hard to know exactly, you know, Chris is right about the intelligence community's influence. But this might be one way the administration has a fighting back, you know, setting this up as a way of countering the impact, the influence of the intelligence community and saying, well, it's not awful, the court won't extradite. So it could be a way of getting around that influence. I don't know if I would blame the lawyer because it was the home secretary who did not ask for these assurances. And I think that's that's where the authority rests in that question. But let me raise this to Bruce, the last lawyer standing here. What charge could he get? As Chris said, when he gets to the US, he could have another charge. He was alluded to Vault 7. But where's the death penalty in the Vault 7 leaks? What crime would he have to be charged with in the US to get the death penalty? Remember the government, well, that's that's with the charge. But remember the government's contention is that by disclosing this information, he allowed states hostile to the US, and it would endanger American defenses to have information that could achieve that. And that's all that it takes to get the death penalty. It's important to realize that. And so they conceivably could charge him. They can pick any number of discharges of information they haven't charged yet and charge it in that way, or they can even seek to amend the existing indictment. The obligation to hold back on the death penalty does not arise until after the arraignment. So they're not even obligated on the US law to at this point make a statement on the death penalty. It doesn't even arise yet. And so there's all sorts of opportunities still for that to happen. And it's more than just a theory, though obviously no one's going to execute Julian, but it's a fact that could happen. And so it's available as a way for the court to deny extradition. And I'll just stress again, I don't see how anyone can give assurances on the First Amendment defense. And there is, by the way, a strain in US law that says the First Amendment does not apply outside the US to persons or actions outside the US. And that's another, and that they could be argued that much of Julian's actions took place outside the US. And therefore he might not be subject to that defense. So there's a lot of room here for the court to have to deny later or allow further appeal. Now, if you remember when you read the the 66 page ruling, there's an interesting admission by the two judges that they admit that he acted in a political way, that I was protected political act, that he exposed criminality, but that he was never charged. And none of the leaks had to do with a US war crime had to do with this mostly about the informants being put at risk, which we know is a lot of rubbish. If you know the whole story, we've gone over it so many times. But I think it's interesting that the judges admitted that he was acting politically, but you have to put the that part of the treaty or the act doesn't apply. And also that we're not getting him for war crime, the US is charged him with something else. So they're not even denying that there were war crimes there. I found that interesting. I don't know if anybody wants to weigh in on that. Can I come in on that and say that there's an interesting non sequitur as well in the argument, because what they state is that he's being he's only being charged with those publications which contained the name of informants, he is not being charged with any of the publications which exposed criminal wrongdoing by the United States. And the idea you can remove a sort of holistic view of, you know, the generality of what was being published and what it exposed and pick out little elements of that and saying there the bits is being charged with it. That's one thing. But the second thing is it's a complete non sequitur, because the argument only works if none of the documents which named names contained evidence of criminality. They're talking as though those are two entirely separate things that the documents that named names contain no evidence of criminality. And the evidence of criminality is all in the documents that didn't name names, was in fact, that's not true at all. There's plenty of evidence of criminality in the documents that named names. So they made this completely false distinction between the two sets of documents. Well, I'm not only one set of documents anyway, but they're claiming that there's no criminality in the documents that name names. I think the court has another false distinction also between this idea of political opinion and political offense. I mean, the court acknowledges is an overlap, as it says. But we're parsing nuances here. And I think what Parliament did was it got rid of the political offense provision, because political opinions is broader and embraces more activity. I don't think they meant to say it's one versus the other. And this distinction, I mean, the reason one is persecuted for opinion is because that opinion is offending in some fashion. So there's really no real way to justify distinguishing between these two. So in terms of what Craig was saying about, you know, there's really no distinction there, I think there's another area in which the courts looking at a real fiction, this notion that there's somehow a difference between opinion and offense, political opinion and political offense. And, you know, it's interesting, I think they would, they didn't prosecute any newspaper. They're prosecuting Julian because he was so effective in drawing attention to these things, to that criminality, Craig, as you're putting it. And I think that's where it's a political prosecution. And I'm very glad that they pushed on this, you know, in the final argument recently, because it wasn't pressed earlier that much. And it clearly, Julian's the lightning rod that annoys, as Chris Hedges said, the government, the intelligence community, they're going after Julian because he represents something and they're not going after New York Times or any of the others have published it. So I, you know, it seems to me that it is a political prosecution one way or the other. And this distinction between offenses and opinions is very narrow and shouldn't even be existing. Don't forget, Bruce, the New York Times is very useful to the CIA and the other intelligence community. They're constantly leaking their own stuff to the New York Times. So I don't think they want to alienate the New York Times. Well, they never did, you know, they never wanted to prosecute them in the first place in the Pentagon Papers case. But Julian is principled about this and he, he's not going to help to see how he liked the New York Times does. Again, just to add to Bruce's point as well, the obviously Assange wasn't the first to publish those names either. I mean, we can go over it again, but I found it really infuriating reading the judgment the way that the judges basically stated as fact. They implied heavily that he was the only one and that's why he was being prosecuted, etc. So, right. Very good point, Elizabeth. He was not the only one. He was not the first one. As we know, John Young from Cryptom.com, he asked the Department of Justice to indict him because he published exact same materials before Julian did. And he didn't redact any of the names, any of them, if I recall, and they didn't go after him. So that's a good point. Yeah. By the way, that brings up selective prosecution and, you know, why just one and not the others? Sorry, Craig, I didn't mean to cut you off. That's okay. But there's another interesting point that struck me in the judgment where they talk of, where they're relating what, what events happened, not what events allegedly happened. They're not saying these are allegations. They're saying this is what happened and this is why the charges are legitimate. And they state that Julian Assange in a chat log, I'm not sure whether chat log is a correct description, but that's the description. They were in a chat log with Chelsea Manning exchanged messages, blah, blah, blah. But they say he did that. Not that he was alleged to do that. And as far as I'm aware, it has never been admitted that it was Julian Assange on the end of the chat log. And I understand there are several possibilities within WikiLeaks as to who it might have been, even if it's admitted it was WikiLeaks. But they state as fact things which have not been proven as fact in the court of law and which are disputed by the defense. And that struck me as very strange. Yeah, Chelsea Manning has never said that Daniel Frank was Assange, as far as I know. That was the name of the judge. Right. We don't know that. And that's one of the things to be proven if there's a trial. But I would defend the court at this point though, because for purposes of extradition, they have to assume these things happened because they're charged. So I think that's why the court speaks that way. I don't think the court is speaking that way to make a pre-judgment. I think they have to. They have to accept that these things happened and they're being charged. I think they have to do that in extradition. So I would say they're probably not prejudging the facts. They just have no choice. They have to assume those facts are true for this purpose. It's a bit of a fiction, but it does look like they're prejudging though. I have to agree with Craig. But I think that's a legalistic reason why they're doing that. Well, if there's anything anyone else would like to add, this is the time to do it. Appreciate you all. I wish I was there in the courtroom with you all. Sorry, you wish you were. I didn't realize that it must have been amazing to see. It was an extraordinary thing to be inside there and to witness. I think, Craig, you said somewhere else that another webcast that you had a kind of grudging respect for James Lewis, who was the prosecutor in the extradition phase in the first lower court, and do you think they missed him being there? And why wasn't he there? Do you have any idea? No, I found that very strange that he, because the courts go out of their way to schedule hearings so that the lead QCs can be there. They very seldom hold a hearing on a date which one of the lead QCs can't make. And the fact that they didn't then put up another top lawyer to replace him, but just led with the second as such a key hearing, seemed to me very peculiar. I mean, really quite strange. It's very hard for us who are activists to understand that you have lawyers who do their job and they could equally well be on the other side. I mean, Mark Summers, who seemed so very vague, who was so very passionate in his arguments, he acts for the government in extradition cases as well. So that profession is peculiar to those of us who are activists and understanding that is sometimes emotionally, is sometimes a little hard for us to process. But I thought with James Lewis, I could see that. I could see he was actually a perfectly decent person doing an unpleasant job, if you like. And I thought he actually did it extremely well. You can tell he's a very, very good, very proficient lawyer. It's a unique feature of the British system where the lawyers can be on opposite sides every day and be a prosecutor one day, a defense another. It can't happen in the US. It's illegal. We don't allow it. If you're a defense lawyer, a prosecutor, you can shift roles, but you can't alternate every day. You do one or the other in your career at a given time. Otherwise, we call it conflict. But in Britain, it happens all the time. You can be in the same chambers and be against each other. And it happens all the time. It's something Americans have trouble figuring out as well. So it's not just people in the UK. A lot of people here can't get that either. In a way, it makes their system better because there's a certain ethic in arguing a case for its own sake and not being committed to a cause as a lawyer. Greg, I was wondering if I could ask you one last question, because you seem to have a very good knowledge of the difference between the act and the treaty, the Spanish, the extradition act and the tradition treaty. Apparently, it talks about, the act talks about returning someone to the requesting country. And Assange is not being returned. And the act says that it applies to UK citizens and he's not a UK citizen. So shouldn't the international treaty prevail instead? This comes from Kati Vogan, our producer, who wrote me this question. The extradition act, I think, talks of returning someone to the country because, of course, normally they're being extradited for a crime which has occurred in that country. Whereas here, you're sending someone to be extradited under a claim of universal jurisdiction, which is a different thing. I must confess, I haven't read, and the UK Exhibition Act definitely applies to non-UK citizens. So that's for sure. I haven't read the point on returning. I haven't looked at the language of it. That point hasn't struck me. That would be why, because normally you are returning someone to where the crime was committed in the next tradition. The act, the treaty depends on the act, if you see what I mean, but the treaty is an enabling act which then is an enabling, sorry, the act is an enabling act which enables the government then to enter treaties to put it into force, which again makes the argument that there's a conflict between the two all the more strange, particularly as the act was passed in 2003 and the treaty in 2007 and would have been drafted by exactly the same lawyers. Physically, the same people would have drafted the two things. So the idea that the, as Bruce was saying, the idea that the reference to political opinion in the act is it means something substantially different to political offence in the treaty when it's the same lawyers who would have done it and passed it and not noticed they were drafting two totally incompatible documents is a nonsense. I used to work in the government and I know, and I've actually, on completely different subjects, but I've actually been responsible for drafting and signing off treaties and you have a clearance procedure which makes it impossible to enter into a treaty which is incompatible with existing legislation. It would be spotted that they're very strong systems in place where you have to circulate any treaty to countless lawyers and countless government departments for them to check its compatibility in existing legislation. So the argument that the treaty of 2007 was incompatible with the extradition act of 2003 and therefore its provisions do not apply where they conflict is. It's just a total fiction. It's a complete fiction and not even a good fiction. It's just obviously nonsense. Thank you for that, Craig. I think with that we might call it a night. I want to thank Craig Murray, wherever he is for coming on our show, just bring his expertise to this issue to Bruce. I'm coming to Greece today. Where? Greece? Greece. Yeah. Okay. I hope it's warmer than it is here in London where it was freezing and raining all day. Bruce Afron is on a sunny, looks like very sunny Princeton, New Jersey, where Chris Hedges is also coming from and of course Elizabeth is in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Kathy Vogan is running the whole thing behind the scenes from Sydney, Australia. And this is Joe Lawyer for CN Live saying goodbye and thanks for joining us. And we'll be back to discuss this issue some more, particularly after the 16th of April, which is a deadline for the US to see whether they're actually going to be giving these assurances or not. So again, talk to you then. Bye-bye. If you are a consumer of independent news and the first place you should be going to is Consolidation News and please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall. It's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of Consolidation News, it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much.