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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."
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?
From my understanding, a president has two options: he can pardon someone, meaning the whole conviction is removed and things like e.g. voting rights are restored; or he can commute a sentence, which lowers the penalty but upholds the original conviction. So, after being released from her commuted sentence, Manning will still be a convicted felon and traitor, probably won't be eligible to vote or stand for election, will never get security clearance, etc etc. Also emotionally, a pardon would acknowledge that what she did was (somewhat) right, while a commutation means that she is still guilty and her acts were wrong, just not deserving of such a hash treatment. This also sends quite a different message to would-be whistleblowers.
So, the difference between pardon and commutation is not a technicality, it is very real.
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.
Also, forgot to mention, a lot of the Internet warrior right support him now since he helped Trump win the election.
Wired claims that Assange revealed his endgame some years ago.
Want to Know Julian Assange’s Endgame? He Told You a Decade Ago
Essentially, he believes that even though our system of government is based on an adversarial relationship between political parties, between defense lawyers and prosecutors; between plaintiffs and respondents, among candidacies of opposing viewpoints, participants (or in his parlance, co-conspirators), should not be allowed the privilege of discussing and formulating strategy out of earshot.
A 20th century equivalent was Vlasov, a Soviet general captured by the Nazis, and who then changed sides (so a reverse of the German general Paulus), not particularly effectively, a major reason being distrust of him by the Nazis, a distrust that was not entirely unjustified when "at the war's end he changed sides again and aided the Prague uprising".
... argued that Vlasov adopted a pro-Nazi German stance in prison out of opportunism, careerism, and survival, fearing Stalinist retribution for losing his last battle and his army.
In 2016 Russian historian Kirill Alexandrov in his habilitation thesis analyzed the careers of 180 Soviet generals and officers who joined the Vlasov army and concluded that most of them personally experienced atrocities committed by the NKVD during the Great Purge and previous purges in the Red Army, which made them disillusioned with the leadership of Stalin and motivated them to defect to the Nazis. Alexandrov's work was reported to the FSB by Russian nationalists as 'inciting hatred' but his university, regardless of the political pressure, voted in favor of its scientific value."
"Vlasov claimed that during his ten days in hiding he affirmed his anti-bolshevism, believing Joseph Stalin was the greatest enemy of the Russian people, and there is evidence that suggests Vlasov may have changed sides in a bid to give his countrymen a better life than the one they had under Stalin. His critics
How could you possibly interpret his statement like that? He supported the exposure of corruption when it was exposing corruption *with an even hand*. Once the exposure was applied only to one side of a partisan contest, it became insupportable.
Why bother making such ridiculous strawman statements? It's obviously not what the OP thinks. I doubt it's even what you think. It won't convince more than a handful of readers. What was the point?
Wikileaks has said they have stuff on the RNC. The US intelligence agencies have said they found evidence the RNC was also hacked. Trump is careless and no doubt has given ample opportunity to collect incriminating material.
The proof of their partisanship is the timing of their releases. Assange pretty much declared that he was releasing stuff in dribs and drabs to keep the flow of anti-Clinton stuff more or less constant. That's not 'release the information and let the chips fall where they may'. That's agenda-driven media manipulation. Who knows what Assange's actual agenda is - but he most certainly has shown that he's agenda driven, and that agenda included harming Clinton or helping Trump or both. Whether he cares about Russia and Putin one way or another is a different point - and he hasn't revealed anything about that yet...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...