Comments - Who's hearing the case to unseal the secret charges against Julian Assange today? Judge Brinkema "national security" court complex. CIA whistleblower @JohnKiriakou on Brinkema - 12160 Social Network2024-03-29T06:34:13Zhttps://12160.info/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=2649739%3ABlogPost%3A1851053&xn_auth=noThe charges against WikiLeaks…tag:12160.info,2018-11-27:2649739:Comment:18510082018-11-27T19:03:39.900ZBARRYhttps://12160.info/profile/BARRY_O
<p>The charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will remain sealed for now, with a federal judge in Alexandria saying she would hear more before ruling on whether the public has a right to see the documents.</p>
<p>“This is an interesting case, to say the least,” Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said Tuesday. “Obviously, some kind of mistake has been made.” That mistake by the government, she noted,<span> …</span></p>
<p>The charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will remain sealed for now, with a federal judge in Alexandria saying she would hear more before ruling on whether the public has a right to see the documents.</p>
<p>“This is an interesting case, to say the least,” Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said Tuesday. “Obviously, some kind of mistake has been made.” That mistake by the government, she noted,<span> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/this-prosecutors-cut-and-paste-mistake-revealed-a-case-against-wikileaks-founder/2018/11/16/9a118702-e9b0-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">exposed Assange’s name</a><span> </span>and “the fact that he has been charged” in a filing for an unrelated case. “Given the fact that this statement does appear in a government filing, and given that everybody knows where this man is, what is the rationale for sealing the charge?”</p>
<p>But Brinkema said she knew of no other case in which the government had been compelled to unseal a charging document before the defendant’s arrest.</p>
<p>Attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit organization pushing for the case to be unsealed, plan to file new documentation bolstering their argument.</p>
<p>“The filing, inadvertent or not . . . confirms the speculation” that Assange has been charged with a crime, RCFP legal director Katie Townsend said in court. “At a minimum, Mr. Assange knows that he has been charged.” Any justification for keeping the case sealed, she said, has “evaporated.”</p>
<p>Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg countered that no such confirmation exists, although<span> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-has-been-charged-prosecutors-reveal-in-inadvertent-court-filing/2018/11/15/9902e6ba-98bd-48df-b447-3e2a4638f05a_story.html?utm_term=.2d80196cc196" title="www.washingtonpost.com">officials have told The Washington Post</a>that charges against Assange were indeed filed. If there is a case, Kromberg said, explaining the need for secrecy in open court would be counterproductive.</p>
<p>“Any discussion of why it would be sealed cannot be done in a public forum,” he said. “This court . . . doesn’t know what needs to be said.”</p>
<p>Barry Pollack, who represents Assange, watched the proceedings and said that although his client does not oppose the unsealing, he does not plan to intervene.</p>
<p>“Mr. Assange as a journalist is certainly aligned with the Reporters Committee,” he said.</p>
<p>Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia<span> </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/29/AR2010112905973.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">have been investigating WikiLeaks</a><span> </span>ever since the anti-secrecy site published diplomatic cables and military documents in 2010, and<span> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-debating-charges-against-wikileaks-members-in-revelations-of-diplomatic-cia-materials/2017/04/20/32b15336-2548-11e7-a1b3-faff0034e2de_story.html?utm_term=.7203bd53eb2c" title="www.washingtonpost.com">took a fresh look</a>at that case after<span> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-identifies-suspect-in-major-leak-of-cia-hacking-tools/2018/05/15/5d5ef3f8-5865-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html?utm_term=.c747c5851456" title="www.washingtonpost.com">CIA hacking tools</a><span> </span>were exposed in 2017.</p>
<p>Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also has<span> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-probes-roger-stones-interactions-with-trump-campaign-and-timing-of-wikileaks-release-of-podesta-emails/2018/10/30/33052472-db89-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">looked into<span> </span></a>whether WikiLeaks coordinated with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to disseminate Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian operatives.</p>