ASSANGE CHARGES
Prosecutors debated First Amendment implications.
WASHINGTON — Two prosecutors involved in the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange argued against the Justice Department’s decision to accuse him of violating the Espionage Act because of fear such charges posed serious risks for First Amendment protections and other concerns, according to people familiar with the matter.
The previously undisclosed disagreement inside the Justice Department underscores the fraught, high-stakes nature of the government’s yearslong effort to counter an internetage publisher who has repeatedly declared his hostility to U.S. foreign policy and military operations. The Assange case also illustrates how the Trump administration is willing to go further than its predecessors in pursuit of leakers — and those who publish official secrets.
The internal Justice Department debate over how, or whether, to prosecute Assange stretched back to the Obama administration, which ultimately decided such charges were a bad idea but did not formally close the case.
The case was dormant when the Trump administration began, but in 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, eager to demonstrate his zeal for pursuing anti-leak investigations, urged the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to take a second look at prosecuting Assange.
One of the assistant U.S. attorneys asked to evaluate the case was James Trump, an aggressive veteran prosecutor with experience in intelligence leak matters.
James Trump was part of the team that won criminal convictions in 2015 against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was charged with leaking classified information to journalist James Risen. Prosecutors in that case had taken the dramatic step of seeking to compel Risen to reveal his source in court. The prosecution team in that case wanted to jail Risen until he cooperated with investigators, but that plan was scuttled by then-Attorney General Eric Holder, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Whenit came to Assange, James Trump was concerned about pursuing a prosecution that was so susceptible to First Amendment and other complicated legal and factual challenges, the people familiar with the matter said.
Another prosecutor, Daniel Grooms, also disagreed with charging Assange, according to the people familiar with the matter. At the time, Grooms served as criminal chief in the U.S. Attorney’s office handling the case.
Prosecutors debated the case internally for months, with James Trump and Grooms advocating against Espionage Act charges, the people said. By the time prosecutors charged Assange, James Trump was off the team, and Grooms left the Justice Department in April for unrelated reasons, these people said.
It is not uncommon for prosecutors to internally debate or disagree about whether a particular case merits criminal charges; in the Assange case, however, the disagreement involved major questions about constitutional rights.
Grooms declined to comment; James Trump referred a reporter to Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, who said in a statement, “We do not respond to anonymously sourced statements,” citing DOJ policy.
Part of the concern among Justice Department veterans was that prosecutors had looked at the same evidence for years during the Obama administration, and determined such charges were a bad idea, in large part because Assange’s conduct was too similar to that of reporters at established news organizations.
People familiar with the Assange case said the Justice Department did not have significant evidence or facts beyond what the Obama-era officials had when they reviewed the case.
Last week, senior Justice Department officials announced an 18-count indictment against Assange, accusing him of conspiring with former Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning in 2010 to obtain and disseminate secret government documents. The charges alarmed First Amendment experts, who called them a threat to press freedoms.
Assange, 47, has spent years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, but after his asylum was revoked, British police arrested him in April and U.S. prosecutors unsealed a onecount indictment charging he conspired with Manning to try to hack a government computer password.
Law enforcement officials described that initial, single charge as a placeholder, and said officials had planned for months to charge Assange with Espionage Act violations, each carrying a potential 10-year prison sentence.
The new indictment accuses Assange of providing direction to Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who shared hundreds of thousands of classified war logs and diplomatic papers with WikiLeaks. Manning is in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Assange.
Assange is fighting extradition in the British courts, a process that could take years.