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- The Justice Department has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts, including violating the Espionage Act.
- Assange was indicted over his role in obtaining and disseminating sensitive information pertaining to US national security interests in 2010.
- "Assange, WikiLeaks affiliates and Manning shared the common objective to subvert lawful restrictions on classified information and to publicly disseminate it," the document said, referring to the former US army analyst Chelsea Manning, who provided the documents to Assange.
- Assange was previously charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in April.
- Assange and WikiLeaks were central to the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts, including violating the Espionage Act.
The DOJ has been investigating Assange since 2010 for his role in obtaining and disseminating sensitive information pertaining to US national security interests, and Thursday’s indictment was not entirely unexpected.
"Assange, WikiLeaks affiliates and Manning shared the common objective to subvert lawful restrictions on classified information and to publicly disseminate it," the document said, referring to the former US army analyst Chelsea Manning, who provided the documents to Assange.
The new charges were part of a superseding indictment returned by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Assange was first charged by the DOJ in April with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
The indictment alleged that Assange helped Manning hack a password on a classified Pentagon computer.
In a statement after the April indictment was unsealed, the DOJ said the charge against Assange is connected to his alleged role in the 2010 release of thousands of pages of classified US government documents and videos related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The government characterized the leak as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."
"Manning, who had access to the computers in connection with her duties as an intelligence analyst, was using the computers to download classified records to transmit to WikiLeaks," the statement added.
"Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log on to the computers under a username that did not belong to her. Such a deceptive measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to determine the source of the illegal disclosures."
Assange had been living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London under asylum since 2012.
But in April, British authorities arrested Assange after the embassy withdrew its protection. Shortly after, the DOJ indicted him on the hacking charge.
Assange and WikiLeaks were at the center of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.
In an indictment charging 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the Democratic National Committee and disseminating stolen emails, Mueller’s office mentioned WikiLeaks — though not by name — as the Russians’ conduit to release hacked documents via the hacker Guccifer 2.0, who is believed to be a front for Russian military intelligence.
WikiLeaks touts itself as an independent organization, but US intelligence believes the group to be a propaganda tool for the Kremlin. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo also characterized WikiLeaks as a "non-state hostile intelligence service."
The last indictment Mueller’s office issued was against the 12 Russian military intelligence officers in July. The special counsel’s office has been quiet over the last month or so, likely adhering to DOJ guidelines that bar prosecutors from taking any overt action that could influence the outcome of an election like the recent November midterms.
But Washington was abuzz in recent days with anticipation that Mueller would drop something big soon, whether in the form of an indictment or a report in his ongoing obstruction investigation against the president.
Speculation also mounted that he would charge certain individuals in connection with WikiLeaks’ activities during the election, including the longtime GOP strategist Roger Stone and the far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.
See Also:
- The DOJ agreed to turn over Mueller counterintelligence documents to Congress that could answer many lingering Trump-Russia questions
- Michael Cohen implicated at least 4 people in Trump’s orbit during marathon House testimony
- 2 wild interviews show how AG Barr is behaving more like Trump’s personal defense lawyer than the country’s top law enforcement officer
Source: Business Insider – ssheth@businessinsider.com (Sonam Sheth)