Donald Trump Giving ‘Very Serious Consideration’ To Pardoning Wikileaks’ Julian Assange
Former President Donald Trump said he is considering pardoning Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, if he wins the upcoming presidential election and returns to the White House.
Speaking to Tim Pool on the TimcastIRL podcast before his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, the host asked Trump directly about Assange.
“One more big one, will you pardon Julian Assange?” Pool said.
“Well I’m going to talk about that today [during my speech] and we’re going to give it very serious consideration, and we’re going to have a couple of other things to say in the speech that I think you’re going to love,” Trump replied.
Assange, who is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison in the UK, has recently been granted the right to appeal his extradition to the U.S., where he faces charges under the Espionage Act of 1917.
The charges stem from WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of classified U.S. military documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars nearly 15 years ago. U.S. prosecutors argue that Assange helped whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, steal and leak the sensitive information.
In a major legal victory, Assange won a High Court bid in London to appeal extradition after the U.S. prosecution failed to provide adequate assurances demanded by judges.
In April President Joe Biden passively said he was “considering” the possibility of dropping the case against Assange in response to a question from a journalist about an Australian government request.
In his speech on Saturday, Trump talked about his potential use of clemency powers to influence other high profile cases. He promised to pardon his supporters who stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
In an overture to the libertarian crowd, Trump also promised to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website and who has become somewhat of a libertarian icon. Ulbricht is serving a federal sentence for operating the darknet market from 2011 to 2013.
