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Julian Assange Will Not Hand Himself In Because Chelsea Manning's Release Won't Happen Immediately, Lawyer Says (independent.co.uk)
President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's prison sentence yesterday, reducing her time required to serve behind bars from 35 years to just over seven years. Prior to the commutation, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange pledged to surrender himself to U.S. authorities if Manning was pardoned. Roughly 24 hours have passed since the news broke and it appears that Assange will not hand himself in to the Department of Justice. The Independent reports: Mr Assange's lawyers initially seemed to suggest that promise would be carried through -- telling reporters that he stood by his earlier comments -- but it appears now that Mr Assange will stay inside the embassy. The commitment to accept extradition to the U.S. was based on Ms Manning being released immediately, Mr Assange's lawyer told The Hill. Ms Manning won't actually be released until May -- to allow for a standard 120-day transition period, which gives people time to prepare and find somewhere to live, an official told The New York Times for its original report about Ms Manning's clemency. "Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning's sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought," Barry Pollack, Assange's U.S.-based attorney, told the site. "Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately."
liar liar pants on fire
This guy loves Trump, we should have expected him to act like him as well.
>"it appears that Assange will not hand himself in to the Department of Justice"
And that surprises anyone? I see it now: "Oh, I said pardon, not reduced sentence." "Oh, I meant immediately." "Oh, I meant within 5 minutes of it being announced." "Oh, I only meant if the record was expunged completely too". Whatever.
He's no different then Sean Hannity; I'll get waterboarded on TV. Really? Both fucking shills with stupid, willfully ignorant fan clubs.
Faggots
Come on. Show of hands. Who thought Assange would really leave the embassy just for Chelsea Manning? He's holding out for that sweet Fox News money once Trump makes him an official member of the politburo. He's blond, so he might be Megyn Kelly's replacement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Julian Assange pledged to surrender himself to U.S. authorities if Manning was pardoned. Roughly 24 hours have passed since the news broke and it appears that Assange will not hand himself in to the Department of Justice.
Great. Has the US asked for extradition? Is there a warrant for his arrest? I have not seen that.
How has what he has done any different than any other journalistic source?
Commuting != Pardon
... given how completely corrupt the US legal system is. Just look at the way Gen. Petraeus was given a $40,000 fine and a 2 year suspended sentence for sharing *top* top secret stuff with the bimbo he was trying to boink and Manning was dropped in a torture hole for 35 years for passing on a whole bunch of stuff that had been classified secret just to keep it out of journalists hands. It's bullshit. Everyone can see it's completely corrupt bullshit, the only way you get a fair trial in the US is if you're a fuck'n millionaire, everyone else just gets shafted.
So yeah, nah, tell 'em to go fuck themselves.
This is just wrong. You are an idiot.
He should wait until 4 years after her release before announcing his intentions.
Snowden, unlike Manning, had no legitimate reason to access the data he leaked. He used social engineering techniques to exploit the accounts of analysts for reasons he has never explained. As far as anyone knows he only turned over the data he obtained to wikileaks after it was clear he was going to be caught. Stop trying to sanctify his actions before he has had his day in court.
No wonder Slashdot lusers like him so much.
We admire him because he's a walking STD.
Sounds like a lot of the excuses that the anti-Trump celebrities are now giving as to why they are not moving out of the country as they promised if Trump won.
Assange posted he'd turn himself in IF Manning was granted clemency.
The words "Immediate release" are not in the Tweet.
Obama could have signed a Pardon to reduce the 35 sentence to 34 years,
And that would still be clemency requiring Assange to turn himself in.
Assange broke his promise and proves he can't be trusted.
Now that Assange is playing dirty, the US probably just needs to play dirty and send some thugs out in the dark at night to sneak into the embassy and capture assange to extradite, whatever the risks.....
If he truly believed in the righteousness of his cause he would come out of hiding present his case to the public. Really hoping Trump will force him to answer the accusations against him.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
He never intended to turn himself in. The game plan from day one was simply to attention whore a bit and get his name in the news, which is literally the *only* thing Assange cares about.
It is legal to grab pussy on a whim in well over half the world.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
He's simply giving the Gov't the same run-around that the Gov't gives any of its other court-facing custo^W^W^Wcitizens.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
From the WIkileaks twitter account:
"Assange is still happy to come to the US provided all his rights are guarenteed despite White House now saying Manning was not quid-quo-pro."
This is what I said on Ars. It applies equally here.
1. It is premature to say that Assange is weaseled out until Manning is actually out of jail.
2. There is a difference between a pardon and commutation. Manning certainly will not be able to live the same life as though Mannig were pardoned. There are still restrictions placed on a person whose sentence was commuted. Whether those differences are significant enough is up to debate.
3. The biggest thing to strike me is that this suggests that there will be no last minute pardon of Hillary. The arguments that Obama gives for not pardoning Snowden apply equally to Hillary. We shall see.
In this Youtube video "Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years" it is shown how a woman lives in Siberian wilderness alone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
In my opinion, a similar place could be an option for Chelsea Manning. S/he could live safely there. There are still such places in Siberia.
Assange never said that. Totally made up. Another example of the lying media.
Wasn't Manning arrested in 2013, this is 2017, that's 4 years last time I checked. So where does this 7 year figure come from?
anybody who has defended him at this point is either stupid or naive
We are not defending the man. We are defending the fundamental principle of free expression. Assange is not being persecuted because he "raped" anyone, but because he said things that powerful people didn't like. That is wrong, and isn't any less wrong just because he is a slimeball weasel.
And furthermore, one action does not define a man.
And further further, he may simply be waiting until Manning is *actually* released before giving himself up.
Assange tweeted (about 12h ago) that he would be willing to give himself up in any event if the US would guarantee his rights. And the White House said specifically that it wasn't a quid-pro-quo move, which would seem to release Assange from his promise.
The left likes to take only the one side of things and blow them out of proportion: Assange's heart is black as coal, he's completely untrustworthy, a rapist, self-centered egotist who cares for nothing except his own aggrandizement.
Since publishing dirt on Democrats, that is...
Maybe he would return if our prison system focused on rehabilitation rather than abuse and over-revenge without any regard to the fact that released prisoners are angrier, less remorseful, and more evil?
Maybe he would return if the prosecutors saw the justice system as something other than a game they must win?
Why would anyone subject themselves or anyone else to our justice and prison system? Why would anyone subject anyone besides the worst violent criminals to it? It doesn't do anything but further scramble the criminal mind.
So full of crap. Just like his buddy Trump.
Water is wet.
hell froze over and assange was like wait what.
You're thinking of Reddit and 4chan. /. may have been more supportive of WL when it seemed to not be a propaganda tool for Assange and Russia to try to fck with the US.
He didn't say, "commute the sentence that he/she/it should never have served, and I'll turn myself in..." I believe he said "pardon [Manning] and I'll turn myself in"; also, it wasn't done for him so he has no reason legal, moral, ethical or otherwise to honor his end of an agreement the US government DIDN'T take.
Also, as not an American citizen, he doesn't owe the US government shit.
For all of this spectacle, all the attention paid to the actors and pawns in this charade--Assange, Manning, Snowden, Obama, the US government, Sweden, UK--what has ever come of the actual substance of these disclosures? Has no one bothered to ask who should be held accountable for the lives of those journalists shot down in Iraq? Has no one lifted a finger to ensure that the NSA does not continue to violate the US Constitution?
Why is this such a difficult issue for so many people to stay focused on? Why is it that, even now, people are still focused on the players and not the crimes? Assange is no less guilty than the US government for playing his part to deflect attention from the real issues in his desire to grandstand in the spotlight. That nothing has come of these revelations that Manning and Snowden brought to the attention of the American people and the entire world, is the greatest success that fascists could ever hope for, because it means that even when massive criminal wrongdoing is exposed, the people will not force change: there is zero accountability and the government can act with impunity.
He's been too much of a coward to man up and face his rape accusations, so did anyone REALLY think he would grow a pair and face his accusations? Of course not. Everything this man (and I hate using that word for such a pathetic cow shit of a human being) does is related to dodging responsibility for his actions. He's like a child hiding from mommy.
And in May, when Chelsea is actually released, Julian will have yet another excuse for why he still won't man up.
Sig for hire.
Julian Assange parses words and meanings. Essentially he is going back on his word.
who would have thought
BTW he is not wanted in the US, he is wanted in SWEDEN , to begin with, for his rape charges (BTW who still thinks those are bogus??)
There are no US charges or extradition orders against him, so what would he be handing himself to the US for?
This is Julian playing opportunistic political games in a changing US political environment trying to get the admissions of truth he wants and perhaps being let off the hook by sympathetic Trump at the same time.
Hes using this as a way to force US officials to admit there is a grand jury investigation against him and they've intended to extradite him from Sweden all along which has been denied by the US but why he has always resisted being extradited to Sweden.
If he were to leave the Embassy, the European extradition is still in place and he would be arrested by British police and deported to Sweden.. its what happens next he wants to try and negotiate.
You saying that makes me rethink Benedict Arnold.
Given the duplicity (multiplicity?) of all governments as demonstrated in modern times, Benedict Arnold was probably justified in hedging his bets.
Earlier today, Melinda Taylor (one of Julian Assange's lawyers) spoke to RT from The Hague. But unfortunately the interviewer stacked so many different questions on top of each other in his interview with Taylor, she could easily escape having to plainly answer whether Assange will turn himself in to the US sometime in May after Manning walks free. At one point (2m06s) the interviewer asked:
RT's article about this (https://www.rt.com/on-air/374100-assanges-lawyer-melinda-taylor/) currently redirects to their news page instead of showing the article "Assange's lawyer Melinda Taylor talks to RT".
Digital Citizen
This isn't surprising, I'm pretty certain Assange said he would hand himself over if Manning was pardoned.
There's a big difference between a pardon and commutation of the penalty. The former pretty much annuls the conviction, the latter is just stating you're still guilty but don't have to serve any more time.
Or, do I have that aspect wrong?
What a lying piece of shit.
Neither of his two tweets had any conditions other than clemency. And 35 years of a sentence is as clement as you can get.
If there was any doubt about Assange, it's not gone. Fuck him.
Who could have guessed?
Anyone who says Assange said anything but 'pardon' is wrong.
I read so on fake news.
Clearly his two tweets that didn't say pardon were corrupted by the Russians.
So not only do you expect prisoner exchanges (when the US hasn't even asked for you) on your terms, despite being a criminal in the UK for skipping bail, but when the part you demand happens (whether related or not, I'm guessing not to be honest) within a few days despite the intense complications of such an action, it has to have been immediate for you to keep your promises?
He's an attention-seeking prat, and always will be.
Ecuador - kick him the hell out of the door already.
You believed him?
....oh wait!
It's not as though he had it written on the side of a bus or something
Everyone's all "he's such a weasel, yeah like we didn't see this coming" ... c'mon, you can't see in his case why it would be critical whether Manning was pardoned vs. just let out early?? C'mon, use those brains God gave you to see through your personal prejudices on the issue.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Or so it seems. Come on, folks: Assange proposed a deal. Obama decided not to deal but to do something similar (on his own).
(That's OK for Obama, and politically wiser anyway: I'm glad he did it, although I'd wished for more, mind you).
How those douchebags now construe Assange as not fulfilling his part of the "deal" (which was never struck) is really telling.
Idiots.
This is just typical Assange style attention seeking. He has been out of the news for a while and desperately needs people not to forget about him.
The main reason he won’t be handed over to the US any time soon is because he is not wanted by the US. If Assange was wanted by the US there would have been an arrest warrant and an extradition request.
The best chance for the US, if the US indeed had some interest in him, would have been while Assange was walking around freely in the UK between his extradition hearings trying to stop being extradited to Sweden. The US-UK extradition treaty is extremely one-sided in favour of the US so he could been put on a plane the same day.
Now, considering nobody has ever seen a US arrest warrant for Assange and the US has never attempted to have him extradited it is safe to assume that is not one of his major worries.
Right now, Assange is a fugitive of two police forces. The British justice system wants him for jumping bail, the Swedish justice system wants him for a double rape inquiry.
Assange has always maintained he doesn’t want to go to Sweden because he worries about being extradited to the US (even though that is a very weak argument, see above). If he would now have fewer issues with going to the US, why doesn’t he just go to Sweden and face the rape inquiries if he is so confident he has done nothing wrong?
It's a reduction in the sentence.
President-elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (a.k.a. Donald Trump), I presume?
Doesn't make sense? Neither does commutating Chelsea's sentence.
Or whining about Assange "lying". Seen Trump???
I concur. Wikileaks had no need to release personal data on the opposition in Turkey. Fuck Assange forevermore!
Its incredible the double standard around here.
On one hand we have a man with 10 year perfect record for truth telling -> weasel, liar, attention whore because he won't surrender for the torture country;
On the other hand we have the mass murderer, who kept people who lied to congress in control of the intelligence, that was caught lying to help his candidate, and that didn't stop the human right abuses he promised to -> nobody is criticizing him.
I really hope he does not keep up with this "promise". Who will enable the next Manning? Who will save the next Snowden? The Guardian? WP? Only Wikileaks go the extra length to protect whistleblowers and to publish the truth in adversity. We need Assange free and working more than we need him keeping up with his PR stunts.
when he published a bunch of leaks w/o taking any of the irrelevant personal data out of it. Most for leaks that hurt the Democrats. At that point he was obviously just lashing out. That said, he was pretty obviously framed for screwing with the ruling class. Which is legitimately terrifying. The Chelsea Manning clemency tells me Obama is not entirely unsympathetic to his cause. The fact that Obama couldn't accomplish anything meaningful for that cause tells me we've got a long way to go.
That's the trouble. This is a complex, adult situation. There's no simple answer because there's too much in play.
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involving tax dodging by European economic elites (they're 1%ers). Europe actually enforces these sort of things and so those elites had to pay back a lot of money. Basically, Assange's first couple of leaks cost a lot of very wealthy people a lot of money.
On a side note, the lesson here isn't that government can act with impunity. It's that the rich can. Government is a tool. We've been so afraid of it that we've chosen to leave that tool in the hands of the rich least we hurt ourselves with it. This is the result.
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He should say that he'll come when she's been released. And do it.
Lying under oath to Congress IS illegal, and she did it.
Destruction of subpoenaed evidence IS illegal, and she did it.
The above are not really debatable. Now that stuff that could EASILY be proven in court...
She took bribes from Russia for selling them US uranium.
Let me repeat that one, since it is treason as well...
She took bribes from Russia for selling them US uranium.
She took $600 million in bribes for directing State Department mandates.
She failed to follow government guidelines for record retention.
She stored classified information on unsecure servers.
She had a non-cleared house cleaner go into her secure room and get secure faxes for her.
She failed to turn over all classified information she had after finishing her term.
Her classified information ended up on Anthony Weiner's laptop.
She failed to report mishandling of classified information.
That's just off the top of my head. You saying she isn't guilty of anything shows your opinion is not to be trusted or taken seriously. Its almost as if you want to wreck this country in order to save ONE corrupt politician from consequences of her actions. Saving corrupt politician from jail is NOT something to be proud of, like you seem to be.
Maybe the Ecuador embassy is too good to give up. Have you thought about that? I have no way of knowing of course, just a thought.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
What a fucking pussy.
Everyone's all "he's such a weasel, yeah like we didn't see this coming" ... c'mon, you can't see in his case why it would be critical whether Manning was pardoned vs. just let out early?? C'mon, use those brains God gave you to see through your personal prejudices on the issue.
You could also READ what Assange said and see that he asked for "clemency" which does NOT mean a pardon. It can include a pardon, but it is not limited to a pardon. So who is failing to use the brains that God gave them? What we see here is Assange moving the goalpost and it suggests that even if Manning had received a pardon Assange would have still made an excuse as to why he couldn't turn himself over to Swedish (and not US) authorities.
As long as he hand himself over in May when Manning is released.
sung with twang....
"I see a b1tch, do you see a b1tch (yes, I see a b1tch, what do you see?)"
you can't see in his case why it would be critical whether Manning was pardoned
I know you know what that word means, but did you know Assange never used it?
My personal prejudice is that Assange is every bit the man he has just proven to be. He demanded Clemency, Manning got Clemency, and his criticism is well deserved.
"Douchebag weasel" is a frame grab appropriate to people who decided on the school playground how to decide matters, and haven't updated their model since.
How the Human Brain Decides What Is Important and What's Not
The ultimate algorithm (almost an oracle):
Douchebag / not douchebag.
QED.
If we were honest about this topic, we would notice that suicide rates increase dramatically a few years after surgery - ending up even higher than pre-surgery levels. It appears that for many people denied psychiatric treatment, surgery was a false hope. When it sinks in that surgery did not fix anything, and there are no other options left, despair sets in.
There's a lot of motivated research on both sides, I will grant, but this is the opposite of what every study ever conducted has found. There's also nothing inherently wrong with any sort of gender expression. The problem is that you people thinking that this is some kind of pathology that needs to be cured. It doesn't work like that.
These are the same damn arguments that you guys have been using for decades in the gay rights struggles -- including your veiled threat of violence. You have an inherent right to be nasty to other people, at least in the sense that it cannot be taken from you, but I don't think that you should be so free about exercising it.
Doesn't matter. The smear campaign is in full swing because Wikileaks dared publish things damaging to "their side".
Just goes to show what a fucking hypocritical shitshow the left has become.
If Manning needs time to find a place to live, I hear there should be vacancy at the Ecuadorian embassy.
Anyone else immediately think of this?
Lets just stop covering julian ass's ass.
He hates himself and cant stand to be out of the spotlight for more than 5 minutes.
Ignore the idiot, just let him rot in the self imposed jail.
He made a trump promise. Like a trump fact or trump truth, there's an element oF real in it, but when you look closer than the sound bite or it comes time to do it, you find out that there was more to it and you didn't hear what was originally not said.
I'll build a wall becomes well, more of a fence. Not on the whole boarder.
35% tariffs on outsourced will become twitter shaming until you make a change
I hope all of you WikiLeaks fanbois realize that you've been pawns of the Kremlin for years. Assange is the worst kind of excrement, the kind you can't get out of the sole of your shoe.
A worthless coward worm.
KC Freels
19 January 2017
So you can't accuse me of posting anonymously. Good guys don't wear masks.
The commitment to accept extradition to the U.S. was based on Ms Manning being released immediately
It's not "Ms" manning, he is a male. It should be "Mr." Manning. And it's not just once, but you made the same error four times in the same summary. Come on /., get with it and put a little more effort into proofreading and show some professionalism.
Assange never demanded a pardon for Manning. This is exactly what he said:
"If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to US prison in exchange -- despite its clear unlawfulness https://t.co/MZU30S3Eia"
He's breaking the agreement: his statement is a lie.
Yes, Assange is a weasly little fuck, but he not a liar in this instance.
He promised to turn himself in if Manning was pardoned. Manning was not pardoned.
A commuted sentence is nice, but it maintains the original guilty verdict, thus showing all potential whistleblowers that they'll face the same punishment as Manning, should they report gross violations of the Constitution./p?
Can they request to move to a new embassy and leave Assange at the old one like furniture people sometimes forget to take with them when they move?
You know ...
"like your doctor; keep your doctor"
"like your health insurance; keep your insurance"
"save $2500/year"
Obama built that ....
Consider: We've been treated to two+ months of screeching about how awful Putin is and how his hacks of Democrat e-mails funnelled through Wikileaks is a terrible threat to Democracy and stole the election from Hillary. Assange has been in hiding in an embassy for years claiming he fears extradition to the USA and fears the US government wants him dead (and he has the Hillary e-mails which joke about killing him with a drone...)
Now consider that Obama was willing to commute the sentence of manning, and that Assange offered to hand himself over in exchange for Manning. Presumably Obama could have taken the deal and gotten Assange and then via Assange gotten to the bottom of the Russian hacks... but then Obama commutes Manning's sentence without making the deal to get Assange! Apparently Obama had no desire to get Assange as part of the deal and is not particularly interested in getting Assange or getting to the bottom of any Wikileaks-Russia entanglements.
Commutation is not at all the same as a pardon, so it's perfectly understandable Julian would not turn himself in.
Like many, I championed his cause and firmly stated that he was being unfairly politically persecuted. But the reality is that he's just a douchebag that found a cause to stand atop and be the king of. It's just another power-play. He's as principled as a toaster oven.
what did they seriously expect? Putin probably has a comp suite for both of them at the Kremlin. With free WiFi
Make promise (vague or via a contract), insist terms weren't met, laugh as everyone who wants to hold you accountable is powerless to do so.
Assange and Trump seem to have similar goals - maintain the cult of personality.
I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
He isn't charged with anything or wanted by anyone in the US. While he's not a "most favorite person" in the US, he's not wanted for anything there, so turning himself in is pretty much moot? He *is* wanted in Sweden on rape charges though. If he offered to turn himself in to Swedish authorities maybe we'd all take this as more than cheap theater?
Assange is such a wuss.
Be a man, Julian, you frikkin' coward.
Now there's a surprise, who would have thought a man without the spine to face what he calls false charges would look for an excuse to chicken out of surrendering.
Let him rot where he is
He said he wold turn himself in if she was pardoned.
She wasn't pardoned. Her sentenced was shortened.
If Assange's promise was predicated on Manning being pardoned, he need do nothing to keep that promise.
A commutation is not a pardon. The pardon hasn't happened. Not yet, anyway.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.