American security establishment continues the persecution of Assange

Jun 7, 2023
Katowice, Poland - July 11, 2015: Official Wikileaks website.

News that the FBI continues its investigation into the case around Assange appears to have taken both supporters and the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus by surprise.

On 1 June 2023, Foreign Affairs and National Security correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew Knott, quoted from a letter received by Andrew O’Hagen, novelist and Assange’s ghostwriter, on 23 May 2023 from the London Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.

The letter states: ‘The FBI would like to discuss your experiences with Assange/Wikileaks as referenced in the Unauthorised Autobiography of Julian Assange, and Ghosting.”

Although Knott quotes some other passages from the letter, only the first half was published.

One might speculate that Andrew O’Hagen is sufficiently well connected to people in the United Kingdom for news of the letter to have broken there first, but somehow it has come into the possession of an Australian journalist and made headlines in Australia before circulating around the world.

The entire letter not being available, many have speculated about whether Assange is the precise target of the FBI’s investigation, whether it reflects a desperate FBI – presumably acting under instructions from the Department of Justice – in searching for a new charge to bolster a flimsy case, whether it is an attempt to push the various investigations through to conclusion as a prelude to dropping the matter, or whether it was from a source seeking to maintain pressure on the Australian government.

To his credit Andrew O’Hagen has said publicly that he refused to cooperate with the FBI’s request, saying “I would not give a witness statement against a fellow journalist being pursued for telling the truth” and that he “would happily go to jail before agreeing in any way to support the American security establishment in this cynical effort”.

But in an investigation that has remained “unprecedented both in its scale and nature” it should come as no surprise that the FBI would want to speak with O’Hagen. He wrote publicly in ‘Ghosting’ that he retains hours of taped interviews with Assange, transcripts of interviews and a hard drive full of secrets he was given.

Moreover, he told the Market Research Society on 24 April 2019 that “the long and the short of it is that there’s evidence now – which I have seen [emphasis added] – which shows that he [Assange] and his associates were involved in the US election and the creation of and the formation of and transport of public opinion in relation to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.”

O’Hagen’s public comments make him an obvious target for investigators seeking additional evidence.

It should also be noted that Stella Assange, Assange’s spouse, reiterated at the National Press Club on 22 May 2023: “As for the 2016 publications, Julian has stated that they weren’t from Russia and I think it’s important to recognise as did the Southern District Court of New York that if the information is of public importance then it has to be protected…In the United States if the journalist receives information then they are free to publish it regardless of how the source obtained it…”

On 5 May 2023 Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, expressed his frustration that the Assange case has not been “brought to an end” but didn’t say why it hasn’t, or what he couldn’t change or achieve in his interactions with the United States Government.

The point of all this is to say that rather than speculating about motives for investigations or who may or may not be making representations or why they might not be succeeding, you need to look at what is actually being done and what is happening to Assange. If you look at that, there’s been no change whatsoever; in fact there has been no concrete evidence of effective advocacy by the Australian Government nor any promises of affirmative action.

It is astounding that a WikiLeaks fundraising organisation, Wau Holland, thought it necessary to spend $1.2 million hiring the US lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs to lobby the Justice Department on behalf of Assange when the Australian government has an Ambassador in Washington representing a country which the US says is one of its most important allies.

So where does all this leave supporters?

Until Assange is released, it is the role of every Australian to raise questions, to press for action with an appropriate sense of urgency and to remain sceptical of our government. Rather than speculate we can only look at what we see them do and what they achieve: words are cheap and promises are readily made but actions and events don’t lie.

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