Rights orgs demand Biden pardon Assange

President Joe Biden was repeatedly warned that prosecuting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under the Espionage Act posed an existential threat to investigative reporting by criminalizing routine journalistic conduct that the First Amendment has long protected.

He ignored those warnings, perhaps believing his administration would remain in the White House and have some say over how prosecutors exercise their new powers. That was a serious mistake. Now, a coalition of press freedom and civil liberties organizations are urging him to use his pardon power to lessen the damage to press freedom caused by Assange’s 2024 conviction pursuant to a plea deal.

As Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern explained:

“Julian Assange’s case normalized the criminalization of work national security journalists do every day – talking to sources, obtaining documents from them, and publishing those documents. It gives future authoritarians at home and abroad the perfect “whataboutism” to deflect from their own repressive actions, including imprisoning journalists on bogus espionage charges. A pardon won’t undo the harm the case has done to the free press or the chilling effect on journalists who now know their work can land them behind bars at the whim of the Department of Justice. But it will help reduce the damage. If Biden wants to be remembered as the friend of press freedom he claims to be, he needs to put the future of the First Amendment above his personal feelings about Assange and issue this pardon before he leaves office.”

Rebecca Vincent, Director of Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) added:

“We remain hugely relieved that Julian Assange is now free and in recovery following his 14-year plight, but the terms of the plea deal leave the door open to future threats to journalism. No one should ever again face such treatment for publishing information in the public interest. In these final days of his administration, we urge President Biden to set the record straight and ensure his legacy is one of protecting press freedom by pardoning Assange. The message must be made loud and clear that the U.S. government means what it says when it comes to press freedom, and that the Espionage Act will never again be misused to target a publisher, journalist, or journalistic source.”

Chip Gibbons, Policy Director and Defending Rights & Dissent, said:

“The US government's pursuit of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange remains one of the most abusive attacks on press freedom in recent memory. Everything from illegal covert actions to criminal prosecutions were deployed to prevent WikiLeaks from publishing, destroy its founder, and send a chilling message to silence independent media broadly. While we are grateful this shameful saga has ended, the plea deal obtained by the government states that a journalist receiving information from a source and publishing it constitutes a criminal conspiracy under the Espionage Act. There may be no legal precedent, but right now the Department of Justice has received the message it can get away prosecuting pure journalism under the Espionage Act. No journalist is safe. President Biden must stand for press freedom and grant Mr. Assange a full, unconditional pardon.”

You can read the coalition's letter here.