U.S. may have prepared charges against Assange
WikiLeaks chief’s name shows up in unsealed federal court filing
WASHINGTON— The Justice Department inadvertently named Julian Assange in a court filing in an unrelated case, suggesting prosecutors have prepared charges against the WikiLeaks founder under seal.
Assange’s name appears twice in a recently unsealed August court filing from a federal prosecutor in Virginia who was attempting to keep sealed a separate case involving a man accused of coercing a minor for sex.
Any charges against Assange could help illuminate whether Russia co-ordinated with the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 presidential election. It would also suggest that, after years of internal wrangling within the Justice Department, prosecutors have decided to take a more aggressive tact against the secret-sharing website.
It was not immediately clear why Assange’s name was included in the document, though Joshua Stueve, a spokesperson for the Eastern District of Virginia — which had been investigating Assange — said, “The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”
The Washington Post reported late Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Assange had indeed been charged. It was not immediately clear what charges Assange, who has been holed up for years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, might face.
But recently ousted attorney general Jeff Sessions last year declared the arrest of Assange a priority.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating whether Trump campaign associates had advance knowledge of Democratic emails that were published by WikiLeaks in the weeks before the 2016 election and that U.S. authorities have said were hacked by Russia.
Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said, “The news that criminal charges have apparently been filed against Mr. Assange is even more troubling than the haphazard manner in which that information has been revealed.
“The government bringing criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information is a dangerous path for a democracy to take.”