Transcript: America This Week, June 28, 2024
In episode 95 of America This Week, Walter and Matt discuss the release of Julian Assange and the implications for press freedom. Plus, Anton Chekhov's "The Bet".
Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America this week. I’m Matt Taibbi.
Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kern.
Matt Taibbi: Walter, what a week we just had. After a couple of weeks of not terribly... Well, that’s not true actually. We just haven’t had weeks of the sort where lots of huge things happen just before we go on air. But that was not the case this week. This week was incredibly eventful.
Walter Kirn: Right. And we should tell the audience that this was recorded before the presidential debate.
Matt Taibbi: Right. As you’re probably already aware, we will be live-streaming the debate tonight, it’s going to be on my Twitter account @mtaibbi. You’ll be able to see it there. If you look on Racket, you’ll be able to see instructions about how to watch it. We’ve had to make a few changes about where this is going to be broadcast because of CNN’s unusual restrictions. And we’ll get into all that tonight. But that will already have happened by the time this show comes out. So the two huge stories that we’re going to talk about instead of the debate, if you want to hear our thoughts in the debate, which are probably going to be drunken by this evening, I think.
Walter Kirn: Yours at least, Matt.
Matt Taibbi: Mine at least. Yes, for sure. We had two enormous historical events happen this week. The first being the release, somewhat surprisingly, although I think we both got hints that this was going to come, of Julian Assange that struck a plea deal with the government, that gets more interesting the more we hear about it. But he’s already free. I heard from his brother this morning, Gabriel Shipton, that Julian’s already had a walk in the beach. That he is feeling good. And he is out after an incredibly long ordeal. And we can get into some of the history of that. But Walter, did you think he was going to get out, and what do you think of the timing?
Walter Kirn: Well, Trump did promise to get him out. So if Trump won, it was a done deal. There’s some who speculate that that jogged the process. I think both you and I never understood why he didn’t get out under Trump. But I guess I thought he’d get out eventually. Though, I heard at various times during his incarceration that he wasn’t doing all that well physically. So there was some suspense about whether he would come out the same man. And apparently he’s doing well, as you say. And that’s wonderful. I was hoping that he would get out without conditions, but he was forced to accept several conditions.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And let’s get into that because this turns out to be significant. So in addition to the fact that he had to plead to the top count of the Espionage Act, and the 62 months that he spent in jail will go towards time served. So this is not him getting out and being freed because the government is making any admission about the fallibility of their case, or the inappropriateness of bringing it. They’re actually saying that the 62 months that he served what’s appropriate, and that he should have been charged under the Espionage Act. And we’ll get into what the implications of that are. But then also, we heard this. And he went to, I guess it was the Marian Islands, right? Saipan, to plead on the way home. And this is NPR reporting. Under the terms of the agreement, Assange faces a sentence of 62 months equivalent to the time he has already served at Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom, while fighting extradition to the United States. The judge said Assange was required to direct WikiLeaks to destroy material containing classified information. Though, given how long this case has gone on, such an action is likely to have minimal impact. Walter, what do you think of that?
Walter Kirn: How do we know? That’s a weird inference to me. It suggests that WikiLeaks hasn’t had time while he’s been gone to gather new stuff. From what I understand, he was also asked to destroy stuff that had already existed, stuff that had already circulated, or take it off the servers at least. And if he was holding anything back, which one might, as someone negotiating for his life, so to speak.
Matt Taibbi: Absolutely.
Walter Kirn: I would guess that he had to turn over or destroy that too. And whether it was substantial or not, is impossible for us to know, by definition.
Matt Taibbi: Well, there’s going to be a lot of speculation about what exactly was so important to the government that they insisted on its destruction. And we also have to ask ourselves whether his possession of whatever that was, was an element in the negotiations. Would they have let him out, absent this thing that he clearly was holding over their heads? These are all tricky questions. It’s impossible to speculate, because when WikiLeaks over the years has dropped things, including the Vault 7 files, those were incredibly damaging to the United States. We didn’t have any clue that that was coming. So it could be something like that, where it’s something about the US capabilities that they don’t want him to release. It’s hard for me not to wonder about things like things that are related to 2016, the DNC releases, who the source might’ve been on some of those things. Those questions are certainly at the center of the Assange drama, and this is going to make those questions get louder, not the opposite. So that’s a drag. But the other thing about this is just the... I’m very glad that he got out, as someone, I think we’ve both spoken on his behalf over these years. I appeared with Stella last year in London in an effort to try to keep attention focused on the case.
But the fact that he pleaded guilty means that this case still has unbelievable implications for journalists going forward. And the total lack of recognition of this in the press community, the fact that nobody has looked at this as an ongoing threat to press freedom, tells everybody that most journalists now, they just can’t imagine themselves ever being in the role of publishing something that the government doesn’t want them to publish. And facing the kinds of charges that Assange faced 175 years for Espionage Act charges. What’s your take on the press reaction to this whole thing?
Walter Kirn: Well, there hasn’t been one, and that’s instructive in itself. They talk about chilling effects. This was a freezing effect for any journalist contemplating some project like WikiLeaks 2, or Pentagon Papers 2 or whatever. Because we’re not going to only prosecute you, imprison you, we’re going to make you destroy your files. And then, I think another condition was that he not contest this in the future. I guess that’s common in these plea deals, but he can’t use Freedom of Information Act discovery to somehow argue his case again, or try to show his innocence. The importance of this for journalists going forward is absolutely paramount, because there’s no wiggle room apparently. And did he win a moral victory? It’s hard to say. They denied him one, I think.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah, you could argue it’s the opposite. We just had a case where an Australian army lawyer got five years for leaking details of offenses by Australian Special Air Services in Afghanistan, doing things like throw down weapons next to unarmed bodies. Not terribly dissimilar from what WikiLeaks did. Five year sentence for that for the source. Now that’s the source. That’s not a publisher like WikiLeaks was. But still, I think they’re making an example out of leakers
Walter Kirn: Yeah, they’re making an example, you mean out of the sort of people who would leak to WikiLeaks?
Matt Taibbi: Right.
Walter Kirn: But they made an example for publishers and journalists too.
Matt Taibbi: Right.
Walter Kirn: That’s the entire life cycle of a leak. The person it comes from, and the person it goes to, and the person who puts it out. And all those parties are now under severe warnings.
Matt Taibbi: Yes. And just so that people remember what this case is about. Because I still run into people who don’t really know, or they don’t really understand. They think it’s one of a couple of things. They think it’s hacking. I hear that all the time, that Julian Assange is on trial for hacking. Not exactly true. There’s one of the 18 counts, and we’ll get into this, hang on a second. Let’s see. The last count here, Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion, is actually an agreement they never even saw whether it happened or not, between Assange and Chelsea Manning, then Bradley Manning. Saying, “Can you help me crack a hash?” The idea being to help manning access files, but not under her own identity. And so this wasn’t actually helping her hack the database. The idea would be helping her disguise her identity. That was the idea behind this attempted act. Really it was just, yeah, I agree to try to help you. And there was never any showing that this happened, or that there was any real attempt to make it work. But they did have a written exchange with an agreement, and that was the first case.
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