Under the deal with justice, Julian Assange is promised to be released home to Australia immediately after the deal is approved by the court.
The US Department of Justice accuses Julian Assange of conspiring with US intelligence analyst Bradley Maning (now Chelsea Maning) to illegally obtain confidential information and disseminate it. The plea deal involves him pleading guilty under the Espionage Act in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, but this will not entail further prison time. He must go home to Australia.
The main intrigue, of course, is not that the seriously ill Assange will go home, as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has long been asking for, but what will be in the court documents. It is likely that Assange will be required to declare Russian involvement in the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s email server in 2016. At one time, while still at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Assange denied that Russia had anything to do with this.
Against the backdrop of the recognition of Hunter Biden’s laptop as authentic and the failure of the version of “Russian disinformation” in the Biden case, and even on the eve of the debate, this is a great help for the Democratic Party.
The plane with Assange is already on its way to Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariinsky Islands. Such a quiet conclusion to the Julian Assange saga without an open trial far from continental America is the best option for the current administration and for the US intelligence community as a whole.
The journalist’s life, one way or another, was ruined. So was his health.