WikiLeaks Calls for Pardons From President Obama -- Or President Trump (wikileaks.org)

"President Obama has a political moment to pardon Manning & Snowden," WikiLeaks tweeted on Friday, adding "If not, he hands a Trump presidency the freedom to take his prize." And a new online petition is also calling for a pardon of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying Assange is "a hero and must be honoured as such," attracting over 10,000 supporters in just a few days. An anonymous reader writes: Monday WikiLeaks also announced, "irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the real victor is the U.S. public which is better informed as a result of our work." Addressing complaints that they specifically targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign, the group said "To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump's campaign, or Jill Stein's campaign, or Gary Johnson's campaign or any of the other candidates that fulfills our stated editorial criteria." But they also objected to the way their supporters were portrayed during the U.S. election, arguing that Trump and others "were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications -- because none exists."
Thursday a WikiLeaks representative expressed surprise that, despite the end of the U.S. election, Julian Assange's internet connection in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London has not yet been restored.

Comments

Political reality

[paiute]

Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?

Re:Political reality

[KeensMustard]

Remind us again, which candidate was it that said he would not accept the election result unless he won?

And which candidate was it that promised to lock up dissidents against his reign, were he to obtain power?

Why?

[craXORjack]

I don't believe Manning qualifies as a whistle blower. (S)he just exposed a boatload of confidential documents with no clear purpose behind the action.

Re:Why?

[penguinoid]

One of the best uses for the pronoun "(s)he".

Re:Why?

[pushing-robot]

Agreed. Why do people lump them together? Snowden and Assange/Manning/Wikileaks are polar opposites; Snowden blew the whistle on illicit spying, Wikileaks *is* illicit spying.

How anyone can support both I have no idea.

The other campaign

[Okian Warrior]

Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?

Trump won over Clinton 290 to 228, which is most definitely *not* a whisker.

If you want to complain that Clinton would have won by different rules, you also have to allow that Trump would have campaigned differently under the different rules.

For example, with full popular voting Trump would have campaigned more vigorously in California and New York, to garner more of the proportional popular vote in those states.

He would have had a different campaign, and won under the different rules as well.

Re:The other campaign

[msauve]

You clearly don't understand that Presidential elections only occur in the Electoral College. The popular election is only for Electors. And, there's absolutely no requirement for a popular vote at all. That's a privilege (not a right) which the states have chosen to provide. The Constitution gives states the power to chose Electors in any manner they want. If a state wanted to have their legislature, or their Governor, chose the Electors, they could.

No, Clinton did not get more votes than Trump. She got considerably less.

Finally, it was never the intent that the Electoral College proportionally reflect the populace. Each state is given one Elector for each Representative and one for each Senator. Just as Senators give small states disproportionate power, so to does the Electoral College. That's by intentional design, to prevent large populous states from overwhelming smaller ones. Nationally, the US is a federation of states, not a direct democracy. Always has been. This is all grade school civics.