In 2016, Presidential candidate Donald Trump said “Wikileaks, I love Wikileaks” as U.S. President, Trump recently said “I don’t know anything about him. Really. I don’t know much about him. I really don’t.” It’s clear that the Trump administration with its CIA Director Mike Pompeo leading the charge want to prosecute or even murder WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On April 13, 2017, Pompeo spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) based in Washington, D.C. and said the following:
WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service and has encouraged its followers to find jobs at the CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. It’s time to call our WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year our intelligence community determined that Russian military intelligence, the GRU, had used WikiLeaks to release data of U.S. victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks
Both Democrats and Republicans along with the American mainstream media want Wikileaks founder Julian Assange either behind bars or dead as Fox News contributor Bob Beckel expressed during a Fox News panel discussion several years ago on what should be done to Julian Assange when he said to “illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”According to The Associated Press (AP) earlier this month:
In a divided Washington, few causes have as much bipartisan support as prosecuting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Many Democrats seethed when the radical transparency activist humiliated Hillary Clinton by publishing the content of her campaign chairman’s inbox. Most Republicans haven’t forgiven Assange for his publication of U.S. military and intelligence secrets. Much of the American media establishment holds him in contempt as well
However, the article did mention the concerns about free speech in the U.S. regarding certain activist groups:
But academics, civil rights lawyers and journalism groups worry that an attempt to put Assange behind bars could damage constitutional free speech protections, with repercussions for newsrooms covering national security across the United States.
“This isn’t about Julian Assange, this is about the First Amendment and press freedom,” said Elizabeth Goitein, who co-directs the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center in New York. “You can’t support First Amendment freedoms and still support the government chipping away at those freedoms of people you don’t like”
The Republicans have a score to settle with Assange for releasing close to 400,000 classified Iraq war documents which was the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history. The Iraq war documents exposed torture, rape and numerous murders by the U.S. backed Iraqi police, soldiers and even death squads. Whistleblower and U.S. Army veteran Chelsea Manning also gave documents to WikiLeaks which included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike titled Collateral Murder that involved the murder of a number of innocent civilians including two Iraqi war correspondents who worked for Reuters Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. Iraqi children were also wounded in the attack. Another batch of documents mentioned the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan killing between 86 to 147 Afghan civilians by a U.S. airstrike on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai in Farah Province, south of Herat, Afghanistan. Manning’s documents became to be known as the ‘Iraq War Logs’ and ‘Afghan War Diary.’
The Democrats have a hatred towards Julian Assange as well for releasing numerous cables regarding Hillary Clinton from her involvement in the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya to prevent a Gold-Backed Currency in Africa proposed by Gaddafi to the Democratic National Convention undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign so that Clinton can win the nomination for the Democratic Party in 2016.
In 2012, the Obama administration declared WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an enemy of the state, forcing Assange to seek asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid arrest and the extradition to the U.S. The bottom line is that Julian Assange is a wanted man by the establishment in Washington and they will do whatever it takes to get him in their custody. Would he get a fair trial? No. because Julian Assange can expose a lot more on Washington if he were to have a fair trial.
Meet Ecuador’s President, Lenin Moreno
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno turned out to be another U.S. puppet in the making. Moreno was a member of Raphael Correa’s government for several years and as Vice President for six years. Moreno then became a UN Special Envoy for Disabilities. Correa’s political party, Alianza Pais nominated Moreno as its candidate in the 2017 presidential elections. Moreno even called Correa the best president Ecuador ever had during his campaign trail. However, once elected, Moreno became another Latin American puppet President for Washington.
In 2017, Venezuela’s Telesur reported that the Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa criticized his former Vice-President Lenin Moreno calling him a “traitor.” According to the Telesur “Former President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, denounced his Alianza Pais successor Lenin Moreno as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Correa supported Vice President Jorge Glas who was accused of corruption at the time. Moreno suspended Glas as his Vice President and in December of 2017, Glas was sentenced to six years in prison by a Criminal Tribunal of the National Court of Justice for allegedly receiving over $13.5 million in bribes in the Odebrecht scandal known as Operation Car Wash, a Brazilian money laundering investigation at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras in Brazil. Executives from Petrobas allegedly accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms. Glas was accused of receiving bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in return for government contracts. According to Telesur:
In an interview with CNN Español following President Moreno’s decision to place Vice President Jorge Glas in pre-trial detention to face corruption accusations, Correa called the charges against Glas “a vulgar political persecution” that is the same thing “they used in Brazil against Dilma,” referring to the ousting of Brazil’s elected president, Dilma Rousseff on the basis of corruption charges in a move many called an “institutional coup.”
He defended the Vice President, saying that the accusations are without evidence. “Glas is a person that does not steal or allow theft, but for this one makes enemies,” he said
With that said, not only Moreno targeted Correa’s political allies, he went after Correa himself. The Telesur report stated that “Underscoring the abrupt shift that Moreno took after assuming office, Correa said “I went from being the ‘eternal president’ to the ‘corrupt,’” referring to Lenin’s praising words at the inauguration dubbing Correa Ecuador’s “eternal president.” and that “Correa also criticized Moreno’s upcoming consultation, which he said had the ultimate aim of preventing Correa from returning to power by eliminating indefinite presidential reelections through constitutional changes.”
On July 27th, in regards to Assange, Reuters reported when Moreno was in Madrid, Spain, where he clearly stated what he thought about Assange:
Moreno said any eviction of Assange from the embassy had to be carried out correctly and through dialogue, but he displayed no sympathy for Assange’s political agenda as a leaker of confidential documents.
“I have never been in favor of Mr Assange’s activity,” Moreno said at an event in Madrid
What Moreno said is a Code Phrase for “I am with you America!” Moreno is also removing officials who opposed handing over Assange to U.S. authorities such as Ecuador’s London ambassador Carlos Abad Ortiz according to rt.com:
“WikiLeaks tweeted that Abad, appointed to the office under President Rafael Correa, was the last diplomat the long-term self-exiled editor knew in the embassy. “All diplomats known to Assange have now been transferred away from the embassy,” the whistleblowing site claimed.
This new and sudden twist in the Assange saga has been met with concern by his supporters, with some suggesting that Moreno is doing Washington’s bidding by removing people who might have stood by Assange and opposed his potential handover to the British police – which is expected to bring about a swift extradition to the US. The dismissal has been called “a silent pro-US coup”
What is also disappointing regarding Moreno’s betrayal of truth and justice is his support for the private media in Ecuador. According to a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) article by Joe Emersberger ‘Western Media Hail Ecuador’s Cynical President Moreno’ wrote:
How can Moreno get away (so far) with his post-election about face? By quickly turning on Correa, he immediately won over Ecuador’s big private media, and quickly made changes to public media so that it provided negligible opposition to his right turn. For example, Moreno promptly put a former editor of the right-wing newspaper El Comercio in charge of the government-run El Telegrafo. The results were obvious during a January 21 TV interview broadcast across the country, in which journalists from two right-wing networks and a third from public media interviewed Moreno
Another article written by Joe Emersberger for Counterpunch.org explained how Correa battled the opposition and the oligarchs when it came to the media wars:
Correa correctly identified the private media as his most formidable enemy and he battled it openly and relentlessly. In any capitalist country, but especially one ravaged by centuries of extreme inequality like Ecuador, if you aren’t battling the private media then you aren’t battling oligarchs, corruption or injustice. It really is that simple. Much has been made by his critics of media regulations passed by his government, and some of them can be validly criticized on free speech grounds. However, the tactic his rivals in Ecuador most despised was his weekly TV show. It was one of the ways Correa expanded government media to counterbalance the corporate media. Contrary to what some people have claimed or disingenuously implied, Correa’s show was never broadcast on every TV station and anyone who didn’t want to watch it simply had to change the channel. The more viewers his show attracted over time, the crazier the objections against it became – including claims that the show was a financial burden on the country
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno is another patsy who is following in the footsteps of other Latin American leaders who maintain America’s backyard.
Wow! Another Fake Story: Trump’s Former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort met with Assange in 2013, 2015 and 2016
The Guardian published a story based on Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort meeting Assange on separate occasions titled ‘Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say.’ The article began with:
Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told. Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House
Of course, CNN jumped on the Guardian’s bandwagon with their own report just published on November 27th titled ‘Guardian: Manafort met with Julian Assange around the time he joined Trump Campaign’ about Paul Manafort’s alleged meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy:
Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, secretly met several times with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, including around the time he was made a top figure in the Trump campaign, The Guardian reported Tuesday.
Citing a “well-placed source,” The Guardian reported that Manafort met with Assange around March 2016, just months before WikiLeaks released Democratic emails believed to be stolen by Russian intelligence officers
Wow! It’s amazing how CNN and the U.K.’s own The Guardian still push the Russian hacking hoax without providing any evidence that Russia steered the election in favor of candidate Donald Trump. At the same time, The Guardianmade itself a contender for producing one of the top fake news stories of 2018 (although I am pretty certain that they and others such as CNN will publish a handful of fake stories before the year’s end!). You just got to love the way CNN and The Guardian cite a “well-placed source” for this information on Paul Manafort’s alleged meeting with Assange. According to the CNN article:
“WikiLeaks denied the report shortly after it was published.
“Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation. @wikileaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange”
Paul Manafort also denied the accusations when he said that “This story is totally false and deliberately libelous,” Manafort said “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him.”
It is most likely that The Guardian won’t accept that million dollar challenge from WikiLeaks because it’s a lie. Another fabricated story. Where was this information when the DNC and the mainstream media was investigating the Russian collusion hoax for the past 2 years? Now out of the blue sky, an unnamed source has this information. The mainstream media including The Guardian is sinking faster than ever before and for good reason.
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This article was originally published on Silent Crow News.
