“[Howe’s] idea of a whole-body workout was to drink standing up.”
(Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned City)
Journalist Alan Howe must have just finished the mother of all whole-body workouts, when he wrote his recent topsy turvy smear piece on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for The Weekend Australian, a Saturday newspaper published and delivered on April 20 of this year. A return to deranged slander is the latest pawn move in a ‘push-me, pull-you’ chess game, where Assange appears to be manoeuvred into accepting a plea deal that his conscience will find hard to bear.
Curiously, a slightly more balanced commentary by Michael Ware and Justine Rosenthal appeared in that same Rupert Murdoch owned paper, on the very same day. After months of inertia, the two publications were the eighth surprise in a series of events following each other in quick succession, since Assange’s final request to appeal United Kingdom’s decision to extradite him to the United States.
No decision date had been given by the two High Court judges – President of the King’s Bench, Victoria Sharp, and judge Jeremy Johnson – at the end of the two-day hearing in London’s High Court, in late February of this year. Speculation about its possible timing and outcome, subsequently, was rife. Would United Kingdom decide to deport the award-winning journalist instantly after a hasty verdict, or would America’s State Prosecutor demand that heir British ally drag the process out and postpone the extradition, if granted, until after the United States presidential elections in November?
Innocent until Pleaded Guilty
Unexpected, therefore, was an article in The Wall Street Journal, on the 20th of March 2024, revealing that plea deal negotiations between the United States Justice Department and Julian Assange’s legal team were taking place behind the scenes. On the table, presumably, was an offer for the Australian prisoner to obtain freedom and return to his home country, in exchange for pleading guilty to ‘mishandling classified information’. This ‘misdemeanour’ would not require Assange to appear before a judge in the U.S. and the 52-year-old could walk free, since the maximum punishment would likely not exceed the prison time already served.
Asked to comment, Barry Polack, Assange’s American lawyer, stated however, that the Justice Department had given no sign that they would “take a deal”. But the genie was out of the bottle and the existence of plea deal explorations was confirmed three days later by former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou, in an interview with Fault Lines. Not only that, Kiriakou revealed that this was already the second offer. In an earlier proposal, Assange had been asked to plead guilty to espionage, which he had rejected in one fell swoop, “Hell no!”, according to Kiriakou. Accepting it would have created a precedent with which judges could sentence any U.S. government-crime reporting journalist, from or working anywhere around the globe, on the grounds of espionage, said Kiriakou. Espionage being one of the few crimes for which the death penalty can be imposed.
In any given year, 98% of criminal cases in the federal courts end with a plea bargain — a practice that prizes efficiency over fairness and innocence, according to a new report from the American Bar Association.
(NPR, 22 February 2023)
Kiriakou Knows More?
Remarkably, the former CIA-whistleblower – who was also charged under the Espionage Act for disclosing details of a government-approved torture program in 2007, and consequently accepted a plea deal – seemed to contradict in Fault Lines what he had adamantly stated in previous years about Assange’s chances of obtaining justice in an American court. In an article in USA Today of 23 February 2020, for example, Kiriakou had said that were Assange to be extradited to the U.S., he would stand no chance. He would be tried in the court of the Eastern District of Virginia, known as the ‘espionage court’, where the jury would mainly consist of members of the U.S. intelligence community and their families, none of whom would be inclined to favour acquittal. In Fault Lines, however, Kiriakou claimed the U.S. government risked being embarrassed by Assange winning the case as a result of the jury disagreeing with the State prosecutor. His former worry that defendants tried under the Espionage Act have no right to a public defence, and therefore no chance of convincing a jury that the accusations should be dismissed, was also not repeated.
Citing the finding that “98% of the time” the government, supported by an “indefinite budget”, wins court cases by offering plea deals, Kiriakou, surprisingly, added that his own deal had brought him fame and financial gain, thanks to an ongoing stream of invitations to speak and write. Surely, a solvent Assange, basking in the limelight, would be even less of a desired outcome to the likes of former CIA-director, Mike Pompeo, who plotted to have Assange killed. This raises the question: How serious are these plea negotiations? If, indeed, they are serious and he accepts, how will such a deal affect Assange’s quality-of-life, once he is released?
Whether it was to retaliate against the disclosure of the plea negotiations, or whether it had been scheduled as such, all along, on the afternoon of Monday the 27th of March, only three work days after Kiriakou’s interview, the High Court announced that the judges would present their decision the very next morning. The timing made it impossible for Assange’s Australian family to attend, a fact apparently of little concern to judges Sharp and Johnson.
“Journalists and lawyers have sued the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its former director, Mike Pompeo, over allegations that they were placed under surveillance when they met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. (….) having their conversations recorded and data from their phones and computers copied.”
(Al-Jazeera, 15 August 2022)
Grounds and Evidence So Get in the Way
On the very same day of the High Court’s announcement and unbeknown to the public, but highly likely relayed to Assange, a matter of importance took place across the Atlantic. CIA Director William J. Burns officially informed judge Koetzl – of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan – of the CIA’s official refusal to submit evidence in an Assange-related court case, presided by Koetl. In an eight-page letter, as reported by El País three weeks later, Burns argued that disclosing information on spying activities conducted by security firm UC Global on behalf of the CIA would do “serious damage to the national security of the United States.” The Spanish security firm, hired for safeguarding services by the (uninformed) Ecuadorean embassy in London, had spied on Assange and his visitors during Assange’s stay at the embassy.
Previously, in December of 2023, Judge Koetl’s had rejected a request by the CIA to dismiss the case, brought two-and-a-half years earlier by lawyers Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, together with journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz. Represented by The Roth Law Firm and referring to the Fourth Amendment, Kunstler et al. claimed they, independently of each other, had been illegally spied on, while visiting Julian Assange at the embassy. Hoping to pre-empt the plaintiffs’ request for evidence (classified audio and video material, emails and documents, which the CIA is believed to house in a clandestine database) Burns had invoked the National Security and Central Intelligence Agency Acts of the 1940’s.
All the World’s a Court Case
The evidence withheld by Burns is also the subject matter in the Spanish prosecution of UC Global’s former director David Morales. The case started in July 2019, on behalf of Assange, after staff of UC Global had blown the whistle on the companies’ spying activities. If confirmed, the spying on members of Assange’s legal and medical team, would imply that Julian Assange has been denied the right to a fair trial, according to Richard Roth, from The Roth Law Firm. “There should be sanctions, even up to dismissal of those charges, or withdrawal of an extradition request in response to these blatantly unconstitutional activities,” Roth said. The Spanish court’s repeated requests for information and for Mike Pompeo’s testimony have gone unanswered by the U.S. This week, former ambassador Craig Murray, who was one of said visitors, is due to testify in the case. Weather this will have any bearing on the High Court hearing on May 20th, remains yet to be seen.
In his 27-page decision, Koetl said: “[t]he plaintiffs’ complaint contains sufficient allegations that the C.I.A. and [former C.I.A. Director Mike] Pompeo, through [David] Morales and UC Global, violated their reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their electronic devices.”
(Consortium News, 22 December 2023)
Being Kind to Be Cruel
As said, none of the above was in the public domain, when on Tuesday the 28th of March, a little over a month after Assange’s appeal request, the British High Court judges presented their conclusion. The verdict was half-baked: six of the nine grounds for appeal were dismissed. The judges requested U.S. assurances for the three remaining grounds to be able to allow Assange’s extradition: 1) the First Amendment ought not to be out of bounds for Assange, 2) the death penalty should not await Assange, and 3) Assange should enjoy rights applicable to U.S. citizens under similar circumstances. The deadline was set on 16 April 2024.
After the initial relief that Assange’s extradition was still off the cards for now, it soon became clear that the discarded grounds (among which the founded claim that the case is politically motivated) were absolutely essential to win a proper appeal hearing. Even if the judges’ choice of the three remaining conditions, their request for U.S.’s notorious quick-sand assurances, and the timing of Burns’s evidence refusal was not a choreographed coercive move, it will have put great stress on Assange in trying to weigh up the right decision.
Considerations and Non-Assurances
Was it a gentler nudge, when on the 10th of April this year, a reporter asked for a response to Australia’s renewed appeal to drop the charges against Assange, to which Biden replied that the U.S. “was considering it.” Were the U.S. assurances, submitted six days later, a renewed warning? Because even though the death penalty was said to be off the table, the assurance regarding Assange’s First Amendment rights was in fact a “non-assurance,” as Assange’s wife, Stella, classified it. Purportedly, Assange is assured the right to ask for First Amendment protection, but beyond allowing him to pose the question, there is no guarantee whatsoever he will be granted that safeguard.
The brittle construct of the First Amendment non-assurance could, however, be deliberate. Without First Amendment protection, Assange can be sure of a conviction in a U.S. court, followed by a life of torturous solitary confinement in the cruellest of prison regimes. The U.S. non-assurance allows the U.K.’s High Court judges the option to allow an appeal on this one remaining ground. With the time the court would take to schedule the appeal hearing and for the judges to come to a decision, the American elections would be over. Assange would know full well that the outcome of the appeal will be. In the turmoil of the political aftermath, the coast would be clear to finally extradite the online publisher. If he rejects the plea deal, that is.
18 USC § 783(b) deals with the receipt of classified information by foreigners and their agents. Under this statute, it is a crime for a foreign national or their agent to knowingly receive, retain, or transmit classified information without proper authorization. This includes any information that has been classified by the United States government as “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret.” Penalties for violating this statute can include fines, imprisonment, or both.
(Burnham & Gorokhov,“Penalties of Mishandling Classified Documents in the United States.”)
Truth – a National Security Threat
Although “not an espionage charge,” according to Kiriakou, ‘mishandling classified information’ “is in the same part in the U.S. code as the Espionage Act”. Labelling it a ‘misdemeanour’ may be deceiving, therefore. Cornell Law School, on its website, lists a ten-year prison sentence for ’disclosing classified information’. Law firm Burnham & Gorokhov, specialized in criminal and spy cases in the Eastern District of Virginia, state that “it is important to note that mishandling classified documents is not only a criminal offense but also a violation of national security.” Listed are the statutes pertaining to the crime: 18 USC § 783(b), 18 USC § 793(e), 18 USC § 952, and 18 USC § 1924. The latter (removing classified information) does not apply to the WikiLeaks founder, although the U.S. will argue otherwise. Penalties for violating each of these statutes “can include fines, imprisonment, or both”, the law firm cites. This would imply that, if Assange pleaded guilty, he could be spending at least another five years behind bars, if extension of his prison time was not explicitly precluded by the plea deal.
“In recent months, the former secretary of state [Hillary Clinton] has begun convening groups of friends and political allies for private dinners to talk through the coming election season and to drum up badly needed support for Democratic candidates, starting with the president.”
(Intelligencer, March 4, 2024
If Extradited, to What Government?
The pressure to accept a deal will further increase with the U.S. elections drawing nearer. Mike Pompeo, who, as said and revealed in a 2021 Yahoo!news article, plotted to have Assange assassinated, has already indicated he would accept a government position, were Trump to be re-elected, according to The Hill. On the Democrats’ side, Hillary Clinton, is also taking no backseat in US politics, or the election campaign, writes the Intelligencer in March of this year. Exposed by WikiLeaks for having deliberately prevented Bernie Sanders from winning the Democrats’ nomination, and having ‘joked’ about droning Assange, the former Secretary of State is no friend of the Australian publisher. Being extradited to a government in which either Pompeo or Clinton may have a major say, will greatly reduce whatever chances of a favourable judgment Assange may have in a U.S. trial. Neither will there be much hope of him being granted humane prison conditions.
Given the Clintons’ track record of ‘losing’ acquaintances, the U.S. assurance with regard to the death penalty effectively would bear limited weight. Although there is no proof of the Clintons being responsible for any of the 60+ fatalities among deceased associates, the high number raises as many red flags as questions. Unrelated to the Clintons, but illustrative of the shortened lifespan of those bringing crimes to light, are the recent deaths of Boeing whistleblowers John Barnett and Joshua Dean. So far, there too, no culprit has been named, no arrest made, no punishment given.
“WikiLeaks on Monday tweeted an alleged quote from a 2010 State Department meeting at which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked if Assange could be killed in a drone strike.”
(Fox5, October 8, 2016)
Plea Deals Set No Precedents. Or Do They?
If the U.S. is indeed manoeuvring Assange into accepting a plea deal on the basis of him having mishandled classified information, the question is what precedent that would set – if any. Kiriakou, when sharing Assange’s “Hell, no!” plea deal refusal, seemed to think that plea deals can create precedents. There is, indeed, plenty of information to be found online on plea deals creating precedents, but mainly in the sense that the precedent concerns the process or manner of plea bargaining itself, and less so about the application of law.
If making case law out of plea deals is not legal practice, yet, however, could that not be altered in the case of Julian Assange? After all, not much has gone according to standard practice in his extradition case, nor in the Swedish case, before. In fact, ‘standard practice’ is quickly becoming a question mark in many areas – be they judicial, geographical, medical or political.
A January 2024 blogpost on The Law Firm of J.W. Stafford’s website states that: “The mishandling of classified information seems to be constantly in the news these days.” The reports mainly concern employees of companies who allegedly handled information inappropriately. Their increase may be due to employees’ conscience playing up more frequently, or may in fact be a media campaign aimed at priming people to self-censor. In the making of a ‘new world order’ through warfare, augmenting censorship is crucial. Given the U.S. government’s increasingly stretchy interpretation of ‘national security’, ‘espionage’, and ‘enemies of the State’, Julian Assange admitting to having ‘mishandled’ classified information, would – if precedents were possible – clearly fill a hungry void in case law.
“SAMs are a regime of prison restrictions that control a prisoner’s access to all forms of human contact and information. They are typically imposed on prisoners already held in solitary confinement – that is, prisoners who are confined alone in a cell for over twenty-two hours per day.25 SAMs intensify that experience and restrict the few remaining rights afforded to prisoners in solitary: the right to communicate with individuals outside of prison, the right to have privileged discussions with an attorney, and the right to acquire information.”
(The Darkest Corner, Special Administrative Measures and Extreme Isolation in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, September 2017)
Saint or Scorpion
Were Assange to be extradited and sent to a U.S. maximum-security prison enriched with the brutal Special Administrative Measures regime, the fear is that his stay would be brief. Either he would end the solitary torture himself, as he has indicated, or it would be made to appear he had.
Assange dying prematurely in the U.S., while support for him among an ever more disgruntled citizenry keeps growing, might, however, make him larger than life in the public’s eye. Dying for the world’s sins, guided by integrity, occasionally leads to immortality – a state of being the power-hungry themselves lust after and work hard to obtain.
For the trillionaire-few spending fortunes on mind control, compliance, and dumbing down of the masses, making a superhero out of a man who advocated transparency and justice, who educated people and chose death over betrayal of his principles, could grow – especially in an increasingly chaotic environment – into an eyesore of Biblical proportions. Ware and Rosenthal seem to confirm this fear towards the end of their article “Time for justice has passed – ‘til the scorpion strikes again”: “Though deterrence must always be heavily weighed, to extradite him to the US now is to merely continue the Assange media spectacle, furthering his own self-aggrandisement – with a healthy sprinkle of victimisation.”
A potentially precedent-setting plea deal could seem, therefore, the most lucrative (and revengeful) option to the U.S. and this might be where Alan Howe comes in. For, were Assange to admit to having mishandled classified information, he would likely be freed on the condition (there may be more than one) that he would return to his home country, Australia. Support for Assange down under is, at over 80%, extensive. No one in the empire’s apex, however, will be thrilled about Assange receiving a hero’s welcome on his return. The Australian government, balancing mounting political pressure from both the U.S. and China, trying to appease its ‘vaccine’-injured population with compensations, while clamping down on vaguely defined crimes, such as ‘hate speech’ and ‘disinformation’, might fear Assange’s return will ignite opposition. Again, Ware and Rosenthal seem to hint at this in their article in The Atlantic: “But if the scorpion cannot resist the urge to strike again, will he once more profess, “It’s my character”? In releasing Assange, we will again test his true nature.”
‘Brady first met Howe twenty-five years ago at a Mike Rudd/Bill Putt gig at the old Trades Hall in Carlton. He recalls, “He could really put away the beers. I thought he had a tube running out of his trouser leg into a drain on the floor. But I never saw him drunk.”’
(Quadrant Online, April 7, 2024)
Enters the Gravedigger
From the perspective of those in power, any illusions Assange may have, once freed and back in Australia, of carrying on with his work, or helping others delve for truth – let alone living a life of fortune and fame – will need to be crushed in the bud. And what better tool to start off with, than the ever-effective smear campaign? Of course, few Australian class-journalists would want to burn their hands on smearing Assange again, after Nils Melzer proved the previous dirt tsunami to be fictious at best. But Howe is a stranger to class and, having moved to Australia from the United Kingdom as a toddler, appears to have taken the concept ‘down under’, to heart. Once a senior journalist for The Times, Sunday Times, New York Post, and editor of the Sunday Herald, his inverted approach has scored him his current illustrious position of The Australian’s ‘History and Obituaries Editor’.
A smear campaign is no ad hoc job; it is carefully prepared and the sender briefed. Whether Howe’s image needed polishing up to inflate his reach for the upcoming Assange hit piece, or strengthen the impact of his more regular Palestine-bashing rhetoric, Quadrant Online recently devoted a pedestal piece to the obituaries’ chief, titled “And Howe!.” In a compact ‘he is one of us Aussies’-feel biography published on April 7, 2024, QO’s contributing editor Joe Dolce paints a colourful picture of a somewhat out-doorsy, music loving newsman, amateur drummer and able cook – a boisterous character spiced with a snarly sense of humour, bad driving skills and terrible dress-style. Imprinted on the reader is an image of a bon-vivant whose failings, Dolce suggests, make him all the more likeable. If you are indifferent to the atrocities in Palestine, that is.
“(…) even if, as late as 2000, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Yasser Arafat, when offered a historic and generous deal brokered by US president Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, sabotaged the negotiations. Peace was the last thing on his mind.”
Alan Howe, “The Australian,” December 16, 2023
A Smashing Comparison
To Howe, Ehud Barak – the former Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister until 2013 – is the most inspiring person he has ever met. Barak’s many decorations, his science degree from Stanford, musical skills and capacity to covertly kill PLO-members in Beirut by dressing up as an Arab woman during a 1973 raid, seem to constitute the basis of his admiration. These accomplishments apparently nullify the fact that Barak visited Epstein around 30 times, led the Gaza Massacre of 2008-2009 and, in general, has acquired the blood of many thousands of lives on his hands, during his long career.
In an article titled “Gaza could have been like Singapore. It dug tunnels instead,” Howe compares the two locations in terms of land mass, population and economic accomplishments over the last fifty years, say. (The title has since been changed into “Gaza could have been a Middle East Singapore, but chose martyrdom.”) The article comes highly recommended for those who savour utter bafflement. While mentioning the killings and destructions by Israel, Howe argues that despite all the foreign investments, the Palestinians are their own obstacle to wealth and stability: “But the people of Gaza voted to be run by Hamas, a terrorist organisation not known for its economic ambitions. Instead of building upwards and outwards, like Singapore, Hamas decided to build down.” The Atlantic even has the audacity to juxtapose photographs of a heavily bombarded Gaza and a flourishing, unoccupied Singapore, as proof of what hard work and tolerance can accomplish. Variables as colonisation, occupation, apartheid, and violence are safely left out of Howe’s comparison.
Israel destroying the runways of Yasser Arafat International Airport likewise is, according to Howe, the Palestinians’ own doing – they started the Second Intifada. That this intifada might have been the result of Israel ignoring the Oslo Accords for years, the failed Camp David negotiations, and Ariel Sharon ordering the storming of al-Aqsa Mosque by a thousand heavily armed troops and police, Howe sloppily fails to mention. If Israel ever wanted Gaza to flourish, it would have. Comparing it with Singapore raises questions about the intensity of Howe’s vertical fitness routine.
“The goodwill among Israelis towards Gazans is enduring”
Alan Howe, “The Australian,”December 16, 2023.
Pen’s Envy
On the 20th of April – Hitler’s birthday – Mr. Howe wrote another jaw-dropping piece, titled “Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s sordid life of luxury.” Pure vodka, straight from the fourth bottle, must have given Howe the inspiration to write the opening spite: “Julian Assange is a criminal, a fabulist and an undisciplined, arrogant work-shy fraud who lacks an education while remaining a mannerless vulgarian.” Projection-tripping, labelling Assange a “Trojan horse for hate” and “no journalist”, his slurring becomes almost audible, when he writes: “His betrayals raise him into treason’s hall of fame alongside Norway’s Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling, the Gunpowder Plot’s Guy Fawkes, and Marshal Philippe Petain who led Vichy France”. A short man, according to Dolce, Howe seems to succumb – halfway through the article – to a jealous rage about the dating profile a towering Assange (1.88 m), allegedly used, during his time in London. Howe must have passed out after that and carried on the next day, for the ensuing, more soberly formulated attack on leaks and defence of secrecy reads like a humbling hangover.
“It’s the first time since all of this began that we’ve had support from the Australian government, and it has changed everything.”
(Jennifer Robinson in “The Monthly,” May 2024.)
The two articles in The Australian do not seem to have made much impact, so far. Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson recently stated that the Australian government is more supportive than ever, wanting the case against Assange to end. Even so, if a plea deal is indeed achieved, a wave of Howe-style smear pieces can be expected. Tabloid journalists could find a prison warden, an ex-co-prisoner, or other reward-craving soul to tell them whatever they want to hear, dig up whatever they can find or fantasize, or simply set Assange up. As they did for the Swedish allegations.
The Road Ahead
This is not doom-think, but a call to anticipate and think like William J. Burns: connect the dots, prepare and pre-empt. If Assange is allowed to return home, he will be heavily surveilled. Australia is currently clamping down on crypto currencies, banks are going cashless, censorship is ballooning and corporate insolvencies are on the rise. It may be difficult for Assange to generate income, or receive donations. Whistleblower and former senior NSA executive Thomas Drake struggled to even find a customer service’s job in a phone shop. If a plea deal is reached, the Australian public, especially, must be made aware that their sun-deprived compatriot will need their backing and that their support could be heavily tested by new smear campaigns.
Meanwhile the next hearing at the Royal Courts in London is drawing closer. On the 20th of May, both parties will discuss the U.S. assurances with respect to the three remaining grounds. Two hours have been reserved for the hearing, starting at 10:30 am. If the High Court accepts all assurances, Assange could be extradited within a month. Theoretically, he still has a final option of taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights. It is not certain whether Assange would be allowed to remain in the U.K., during the process, and Assange’s legal team know that his chances of getting a favourable outcome in Strasbourg are small, given the court’s statistics.
European Court of Human Rights Annual Report 2020
Sophie’s Choice
With the current plea deal offer, Julian Assange faces an extremely difficult decision. If he chooses to reject the deal in order to preserve his integrity and rule out any possibility of the agreement somehow being used to incarcerate journalists, he may live on as an immortal hero, but will physically perish in a torturous dark hole. If he accepts the deal, choosing life, family and the sun on his face over his principles – and who would blame him – he would jeopardise the type of journalism he worked so hard for to give the world. All he stood for – safe havens for whistleblowers, transparency and factual reporting, governments being held accountable, and all these things leading to just and peaceful societies – all of that will have been undone by him admitting that publishing proof of war crimes is a criminal offence and national security threat.
Either of his choices results in self-harm. Assange should not have to choose. His case must be thrown out – should have been thrown out five years ago. Publishing is not a crime, it is an act of courage and service to the public. Extradition procedures, plea deals and his ongoing imprisonment – all of it must stop. Assange should simply be allowed to go home, to recover. No more harm.
Whatever happens, whatever he decides, may Assange find unwavering support and protection every inch of his way. And may the latter be amply long enough for him to write some Obituaries Editor’s obituary.