Julian Assange To Matt Lauer: Rape Charges Have Been “Successful Smear Campaign”

video

by Colby Hall | 9:14 am, December 17th, 2010

» 26 comments

Today‘s Matt Lauer nabbed the first American interview with recently jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange this morning. The defiant Assange maintained that the allegations of rape leveled against him were “incredible” calling it “a very successful smear campaign so far.” Lauer asked Assange about looming espionage charges based on software Assange is alleged to have provided in assistance to Pvt. Bradley Manning in uploading leaked documents, to which he claimed no specific knowledge.

Interviewed via satellite from the English estate where Assange is currently staying, Lauer reminded viewers that morning show fluff isn’t the only thing one can see on Today. Lauer was tough but completely fair, getting straight to the point in the efficient 5 minute interview, which you can watch from NBC below (rough transcript also from NBC News follows thereafter.)

>> good morning to you. this is a major legal victory for you, you have been released on bail but not without restrictions as peter just mentioned. you’ve got a curfew, you have to report to the police on a daily basis, you will have to wear an electronic monitoring device, you said yesterday, if justice is not an outcome, at least it’s not dead yet. your response to the events in the last 24 hours?

>> it’s very nice to be out in the sun, in snow and amongst good and courageous friends. we should remember that this is not the beginning of the end, rather it is merely the end of the beginning. we hear credible reports today in the guardian newspaper concerning what we heard yesterday, that there is something like an espionage indictment, made secretly against me in the united states.

>> actually what i think you’re referring to is that prosecutors are trying to figure out if in addition to receiving leaked documents perhaps from private first class bradley manning, you also supplied private manning with software that he loaded into a computer that allowed him to receive those classified documents. did you do that?

>> i have no information about what you’re referring to. we don’t know what the grounds of that investigation is. in fact, like the swedish investigation, the whole damned thing is kept secret. we saw three court cases here and every single one of those, the argument that no evidence whatsoever was needed to be presented to the court to extradite me for hearings in sweden, were secret, a gag ordered was attempted to be placed upon my swedish attorney and the requested conditions for my extradition to sweden was that i would be held incommunicado. something is very wrong with that situation and something is wrong in the united states that such an investigation against me and in effect my organization and indeed now we have received serious calls from the “new york times” as well, that all that is to be conducted in secret.

>> let’s move on to the personal situation with the charges being leveled against you in sweden by these two women in separate incidents. they claim that you are guilty of rape and molestation and illegal coercion. this is going to boil down or is this going to boil down to a very high stakes case of he said/she said? and if so, why are you confident that you’ll be able to prevail?

>> it is an incredible allegation of rape and in the beginning, double rape reported around the world. in fact, according to google, if you look on the internet, my name is mentioned in one-tenth of dimensions of rape. so this has been a very successful smear campaign so far. but i think it’s — its days are numbered and people are starting to wonder, is what is claimed really true and if it is true, where is the evidence? why has no evidence been provided even to me and my defense attorneys?

>> you have declared your innocence in this case and it raises a very obvious question, if you believe that you are innocent and you can prove that, why fight extradition to sweden? why not go back and answer the questions?

>> i stayed for nearly 40 days in sweden. the matter was dropped entirely within 24 hours after the charge was made. subsequently, pushed by a politician to another prosecutor, not the senior prosecutor in stockholm, again, i spent time there to clear my name. received permission to leave the country for my work and did so. i came to the uk back and forth, registered my name with authorities here in case there was an issue. when there was an issue, we went in within nine hours of being called. it is not the case that i or any other person should have to fly off to foreign states without the provision of any evidence whatsoever. that is simply not acceptable to me and it should not be acceptable to any person.

>> let me move on back to the subject of wikileaks and the documents you have released and the documents you promised to release. now that you’re free on bail, you do have access to the internet, mr. assange, do you plan to accelerate your plans to release further documents?

>> as we have seen wikileaks is a robust organization, during my time in solitary confinement in the basement of a victorian prison, we continued to release, our media partners continued to write stories and just said, i see in the guardian, our prime british media partner, india is accused of systemic use of torture. nearly 1,200 cases of torture in kashmir. important revelations from this material continue to come out. we have approximately 200,000 cables into 250,000.

>> julian assange, i thank you for joining us this morning.

>> you’re welcome.

Julian Assange, Matt Lauer, Today Show, Wikileaks

More Liberty

No one seems to be asking the politicians about the lies and corruption shown via the leaks.
Atticus Draco

More Liberty said:
No one seems to be asking the politicians about the lies and corruption shown via the leaks.

you have one or two that particularly concerns you?
skyfet

Distract the sheeplike with “Rape” yet ignoring the obvious fact in the documents released. The media is failing in it’s job again, falling for the distractions. That’s why the media is becoming useless everyday, they should stick to covering distractions and celebrities. It’s official the Fourth Estate’s irrelevant is complete.
Kermit

I heard yesterday that more will be coming out soon and I can’t wait to find out.

The leak on BP was a very interesting one and did you also hear or read that the US is suing BP? Finally!
Waiting to hear more about the banks..

Brovo for Australia for putting in the add in support of Julian and for the US to support their Alie and freedom of speech!!
Pablo

skyfet said:
Distract the sheeplike with “Rape” yet ignoring the obvious fact in the documents released.

What obvious fact? That Berlusconi likes the ladies? Really, where’s the beef?
Atticus Draco

Pablo said:
What obvious fact? That Berlusconi likes the ladies? Really, where’s the beef?

lol,, i know,, WHAT ARE THESE BIG SECRETS YOU PEOPLE ARE CONCERNED WITH?!?!
CHRIST!
Cecelia

Give me an involved whistle-blower every time. Even when they’re malcontents with the sole motive of ratting out the boss.

Give me an aggrieved citizen or an enterprising reporter.

Spare me and the world from self-designated hacking super-heros who revel in revealing secrets because they are there.

I’m more afraid of these do-gooders than I am of our sworn enemies.
Notsofast

skyfet said:
Distract the sheeplike with “Rape” yet ignoring the obvious fact in the documents released.

And just what earth shattering revelation has been made by these leaks?

I’ll wait.
BFD

“Rape Charges Have Been “Successful Smear Campaign””

Of course they have, and anyone who believes otherwise is the most naive person in the world.
Cecelia

BFD said:
Of course they have, and anyone who believes otherwise is the most naive person in the world.

I’d rather be naive than knee-jerk.
Atticus Draco

Cecelia said:
I’d rather be naive than knee-jerk.

AMEN!
http://www.libertarianism.com/ Jack Burns

BFD said:
“Rape Charges Have Been “Successful Smear Campaign””

Of course they have, and anyone who believes otherwise is the most naive person in the world.

I have to agree. Just be careful who you are having sex with. make sure the person is not a feminist!

“All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.” Catherine MacKinnon
Atticus Draco

Jack Burns said:
“All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.” Catherine MacKinnon

LOL,, I dunno what she looks like,,
but,,
that’s gonna take a lot of wine to get her in the mood!!
skyfet

Notsofast said:
And just what earth shattering revelation has been made by these leaks?

I’ll wait.

Maybe if you were notsoselfindulged you’d have seen what is happening.
Just4thefax

Fact: Show red in the bull arena with your bullshit leaks and act supprised when you get hooked!
Pablo

skyfet said:
Maybe if you were notsoselfindulged you’d have seen what is happening.

Why don’t you enlighten us with some major Wikileaks revelations?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Atticus Draco

Pablo said:
Why don’t you enlighten us with some major Wikileaks revelations?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

4 Realz!
i’ve been patiently waiting,,
“OMG,, the secret revelations!!”
Alright WHAT?!
WTF has got you people riled?!?!?
BRING IT!!!
Atticus Draco

‘
i just seen this,, i thinks it’s funny,, lol,,,

“Bloggers claim WikiLeaks struck deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks
The lack of information damaging to Israel in the cables released by WikiLeaks has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists.”

lol,, that’s great!!!
Atticus Draco

Atticus Draco said:
‘
i just seen this,, i thinks it’s funny,, lol,,,

“Bloggers claim WikiLeaks struck deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks
The lack of information damaging to Israel in the cables released by WikiLeaks has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists.”

lol,, that’s great!!!

LMAO!,, first paragraph:

PARIS – It was only a matter of time before conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork to suggest that Israel is behind the publication of the WikiLeaks trove – and is manipulating the information coming out to help Israeli interests.

lol,, lovely!
Assange & Jews,,, who woulda guessed?!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jonathan-Scott/654124552 Jonathan Scott

Julian Assange is a hero to freedom.
snagillim

Notsofast said:
And just what earth shattering revelation has been made by these leaks?

I’ll wait.

I’m glad the registration process was simple and quick to enable me to reply to this idiotic condescending trend of allegations that no secrets have been released.

Sure, we all suspect our governments of being corrupt and secret but the leaks have shown us a few specific and (in a perfect world) prosecutable instances of illegal activity, which is not all that has been revealed but certainly the most important to me. Here are some of my favorites:

1) Secret intelligence campaigns targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

2) Further disclosures regarding corruption in Afghani and Pakistani governments, while not a surprise, as most of this isn’t, brings the irony of many of our alliances with insidious governments to public thought once again. (this is perpetuated in many other cables as well.)

3) Yemen government covering up for US drone activity in Yemen.

4) Cables showing that BP has had even more spill issues than were disclosed prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

These are just off of the top of my head and you too can be informed if you would only search the net before dismissing the leaks as “nothing new”. The reason most people consider these leaks to be of low or null import is because cultural trends have lead us to lose sight of what the law actually is and used to be in the US. Hillary Clinton would be fired and taken to court under the standards of the early United Nations. Here’s a link if any of you feel like educating yourselves instead of dog piling with baseless, poorly thought out comments to anyone who disagrees with your mutually forced, anti-journalistic narrative of emotionally driven personal bias rather than philosophically and historically based rationale.
snagillim

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-embassy-cables-key-points link i promised, but forgot.
Pokerdude777

Nice!!! VERY nice job Matt Lauer!!!! I just loved watching you lob those underhanded softball questions. * yes my post is all SARCASM “
LarryB

If the leaks had included our president having sex with an intern, that would probably get people’s attention and real media play. But, we have been exposed to so many embarrassments by our elected officials the past dozen years that we expect them to be corrupt. If they were squeaky clean, these WikiLeaks would be big news, but the bar has been lowered so far that most people don’t even care. And that’s really pretty sad.
lazzzlo

For what it’s worth, here’s a report from the Guardian that claims “Unseen police documents provide the first complete account of the allegations against the WikiLeaks founder.”

10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange
kirosu

Atticus Draco said:
you have one or two that particularly concerns you?

You don’t?