The lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed in court that President Trump offered his client a pardon if he released information showing that the Russians had nothing to do with the DNC leaks from 2016.
British authorities are determining whether or not Assange will be extradited back to the United States, where he has been charged with 18 felonies, 17 of which come under the Espionage Act. He is accused of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning obtain illicit information for damaging leaks in 2010.
Assange’s attorney Edward Fitzgerald, QC, alleges that former Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher acted as a liason on Trump’s behalf in 2017. He allegedly told Assange that the President would give him a pardon if he was able to testify that Russians were not responsible for the 2016 DNC leaks.
Assange’s four-week extradition hearing was set to begin on Feb. 24, but his lawyer was able to get it delayed for several months. The first part of the case will begin on the scheduled date and proceed for one week, and the second part will begin on May 18 and proceed for three weeks.
Fitzgerald claimed during a preliminary hearing that a witness statement would reference “Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying on instructions of the President offering pardon or some other way out if Mr. Assange said the Russians had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.”
They will attempt to use Manning’s case to argue that Assange should stay in Britain and not be extradited into the U.S., where the federal deep state will attempt to make an example out of the famed information liberator.
“Chelsea Manning’s plea and mitigation to the military commission has key passages which we will be relying on so we would seek to extract that and key press reports so the court has key materials,” Fitzgerald said in court.
“What we say is it is an abuse to seek extradition for a political offense so that is really part of the abuse argument,” he added.
Assange has previously stated in media appearances that Russians did not provide him with any of the leaks that his agency released during 2016 as the U.S. presidential campaign played out.
“Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false. We can say that the Russian government is not the source,” Assange said in Nov. 2016 in an interview with an Australian broadcaster.
“Well, the reason is obvious. They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House. They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate President,” Assange told Sean Hannity during a Fox News interview, explaining the genesis of the Russia lie.
“We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,” Assange told Hannity.
If Trump offered a pardon to Assange for telling the truth in an official capacity, that is an encouraging sign for supporters of legitimate journalism and draining the swamp.