Trump ‘offered Assange pardon to absolve Russia’
A lawyer for Julian Assange has told a British court that an ally of United States President Donald Trump made an offer to the Wikileaks founder on behalf of Trump to pardon Assange in exchange for an admission that Russia had nothing to do with the 2016 hack and leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Assange is in a British prison while he awaits a decision on an extradition request by the US. The US government wants him to stand trial for violations of the Espionage Act for his alleged role in obtaining and disseminating secret government documents in 2010 and 2011 relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange is fighting the extradition, arguing that he acted as a publisher and journalist, and that the US is pursuing him for ‘‘political offences’’. He faces 175 years in prison.
During a hearing yesterday, Edward Fitzgerald, one of Assange’s lawyers, told a judge in
Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London that Assange wanted to submit evidence that Trump offered him a deal back in 2017 through former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Fitzgerald made the assertion in seeking the court’s permission to admit a statement by Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer for Wikileaks, who was present when Rohrabacher allegedly made the offer.
Robinson’s statement, read in part in open court, lays out her version of what was said by
Rohrabacher in the Ecuadoran embassy in London on August 16, 2017. Also present was Charles Johnson, a conservative political activist.
The offer apparently was made while Rohrabacher was still a congressman from Orange County, California. He was defeated in 2018.
Rohrabacher’s meeting with Assange at the embassy was no secret. In 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that his outreach to Assange was the congressman’s own move.
In a 2017 interview with a California TV station, Rohrabacher said he was trying to put together a deal that would be good for Assange, that he could take to the White House. He said he wanted to disprove claims that Russia was involved in the DNC hacks and leaks.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham denied the allegation that Trump was seeking a trade with Assange.
‘‘The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he’s an ex-congressman,’’ she said in a statement. ‘‘He’s never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject. It is a complete fabrication and a total lie. This is probably another neverending hoax and total lie from the DNC.’’
Trump has long bristled at the US intelligence community’s conclusion, revealed publicly in January 2017, that Moscow was behind the hacking and releasing of Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential contest, and that it was part of an effort ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign and aid Trump’s.
The president has suggested that the hack could have been the work of ‘‘some guy in his home in New Jersey’’ or the Chinese.
The first hearing on Assange’s extradition is scheduled to begin at Woolwich Crown Court outside London on Monday.
In 2012, Assange took refuge at the Ecuadoran embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. He was holed up there for nearly seven years before his arrest in April.
– Washington Post