Thursday, April 11, 2019

New York Times Attempts to Link Assange to Russiagate

What's odd about the main dispatch on Julian Assange's arrest published by The New York Times  (see "Julian Assange Arrested on U.S. Extradition Warrant, London Police Say" by Richard Pérez-Peña) is that the center of the story is all about Russiagate, capped by this paragraph:
“The big questions that it seems like he should be able to answer are about the relationships between WikiLeaks and the Russian government and between Roger Stone and the Trump campaign,” said Scott R. Anderson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an editor of the online publication Lawfare, who has tracked the investigation. “There are certainly a lot of factual gaps that it seems like Assange could help fill.”
Then you have to read 14 more paragraphs until arriving at the final two paragraphs:
During the 2016 campaign, WikiLeaks released thousands of emailsstolen from the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee, leading to a series of revelations that embarrassed the party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. United States investigators have said that the systems were hacked by Russian agents.
Mr. Assange made no secret of his intent to damage Mrs. Clinton, but he has insisted that he did not get the emails from Russia.
The whole "Stone worked with Assange, and therefore the Russians, to sabotage the Clinton campaign" line is a complete canard. Mueller could have interviewed Assange and elected not to. What does that tell you?

It tells you that the excessive focus on Russiagate and the allegations of Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno are meant to disparage the character of Assange and bias readers against him.

There is no mention of the UN's finding that Assange was being arbitrarily detained and that the UK must allow him to leave the Ecuadorian embassy freely.

There is no mention of the absurd Luke Harding story published by The Guardian alleging a meeting between Assange and Paul Manafort at the Ecuadorian embassy.

There is precious little mention -- a couple paragraphs -- of the trove of U.S. Government filth Assange published in 2010.

No comments:

Post a Comment