Lawyer: Pair from U.S. had Assange offer

LONDON — A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a London court that her client was indirectly offered a “win-win” deal by President Donald Trump that would see him avoid extradition to the U.S. if he revealed the source of a leak of documents from the Democratic Party before the 2016 election.

Assange, who didn’t reveal the source of the leak of the Democratic National Committee emails, is fighting efforts by the U.S. to extradite him to face an array of charges related to his work at WikiLeaks.

Jennifer Robinson, who has represented WikiLeaks for a decade, relayed to the court Friday via a written statement that her client had been made an offer at a meeting on Aug. 15, 2017, with Republican former U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Trump associate Charles Johnson.

Robinson said that Rohrabacher had said he had come to London to talk to Assange at his then-refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy about “what might be necessary to get him out,” presenting him with a “win-win situation” that would allow him to leave the embassy and “get on with his life” without fear of being extradited to the U.S.

Robinson said that Rohrabacher explained at the meeting that he wanted to resolve the ongoing speculation about Russian involvement in the leaks. Russia has been widely blamed to have been behind the email theft.

Assange didn’t reveal the source of the leak of the Democratic National Committee emails, which were published by WikiLeaks, among others, in 2016 in the run-up to the election.

James Lewis, a lawyer acting on behalf of the U.S. government, said it wasn’t contesting that “these things” were said.

“We obviously do not accept the truth of what was said by others,” he said.