Justice Dept. debates charges against WikiLeaks members
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, taking a second look at a leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cybertools, according to people familiar with the case.
The Justice Department u n d e r P re s i d e n t B a r a c k Obama had decided not to charge WikiLeaks for revealing some of the government’s most sensitive secrets — concluding that doing so would be akin to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classifified information. Justice Department leadership under President Donald Trump, though, has indicated to prosecutors that it i s open to taking another look at the case, which the Obama administration did not formally close.
It i s not cle ar whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks’ role last year in publishing emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton campaign c ha i r man Jo hn Pode s t a , which U.S. offifficials have said were hacked by the Russian government. Offifficials have said individuals “one step” removed from the Kremlin passed the stolen messages to WikiLeaks as part of a broader Russian plot to inflfluence the 2016 presidential election.
P r o s e c u t o r s i n r e c e n t weeks have been drafting a memo that contemplates charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, possibly including conspiracy, theft of government property or violating the Espionage Act, offifficials said. The memo, though, is not complete, and any charges against members of WikiLeaks, including founder Julian Assange, would need approval from the highest levels of the Justice Department.
Barry Pollack, an attorney for Assange, said Justice Department offifficials had not discussed with him or Assange the status of any investigation, despite his requests that they do so. He said there was
no legitimate basis for the Department of Justice to treat WikiLeaks difffffffffffferently than it treats other journalists.”
“The fact of the matter is — however frustrating it might be to whoever looks bad when information is published — WikiLeaks is a publisher, and they are publishing truthful information that is in the public’s interest,” Pollack said. “Democracy thrives because there are independent journalists reporting on what it is that the government is doing.”
Pol l a c k noted t hat t he Obama administration was “no shrinking violet when it came to pursuing reporters and journalists,” a reference to the Obama Justice Department’s repeated attempts to prosecute leakers. Pollack said he hoped “this administration will be more respectful, not less respectful of the First Amendment than the prior administration was.”
Prosecutors are t r ying to determine the extent to which WikiLeaks encouraged or direc ted sources to engage in illegal activity.
In March, WikiLeaks publi shed thousands of file s revealing secret cybertools used by the CIA to convert cellphones, televisions and other ordinary devices into implements of espionage. The FBI has made significant progress in the investigation of the leak, narrowing the list of possible suspects, officials said. The officials did not describe WikiLeaks’ exact role in the case beyond publishing the tools.
Prosecutors are also reexamining the leaks from Chelsea Manning, the Army soldier who was convicted in 2013 of revealing sensitive diplomatic cables. Manning, then identifified as male, chatted with Assange about a technique to crack a password so he could log on to a computer anonymously, and that conversation, which came up during Manning’s court-martial, could be used as evidence that WikiLeaks went beyond the role of publisher or journalist.