Found in President Biden’s State of the Union last week on Capitol Hill was Gabriel Shipton, who along with Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is fighting for clemency for his brother, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
They hoped to take their fight directly to the president, who has so far not responded to pleas to address the Justice Department’s prosecution of Assange.
Assange has been in a London prison since 2019 as he fights US extradition efforts. He has previously spent seven years in self-exile at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
“He’s not in a good way,” Shipton said in an interview with DailyMail.com after visiting his brother last month. ‘The process really wears him out physically and mentally. So I was quite afraid to leave the prison that day.’
The Australian native faces 17 counts of receiving, possessing and disclosing classified information to the public under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking if extradited to the US
He faces up to 175 years in a maximum security prison.
Massie co-wrote with Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts a letter in October to the Biden administration imploring them to oppose Assange’s prosecution. They have not received an answer.
Found in President Biden’s State of the Union this week on Capitol Hill was Gabriel Shipton, who along with Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is fighting for clemency for his brother Julian Assange
“He’s not in a good way,” Shipton said in an interview with DailyMail.com, after visiting his brother Assange above last month. ‘The process really wears him out physically and mentally. So I was quite afraid to leave the prison that day.’
Assange filed a final lawsuit against his extradition to the United States on February 24.
“We’re just continuing to campaign, we have lots of friends here in Congress and that’s very encouraging,” Shipton said.
‘He has not been charged with any crime in the UK, he is not serving a sentence. He has been held there solely at the request of the US DOJ in relation to releasing truthful material. So really highlighting it and highlighting the threat it poses to the First Amendment and the freedom of the press here in the United States’
Assange founded Wikileaks in 2006 and was instrumental in the disclosure of nearly half a million pages of mostly classified documents along with US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Assange’s family led a march for his freedom in London last month
Assange filed a final lawsuit against his extradition to the United States on February 24
Photo of Belmarsh prison where Julian Assange is being held
In 2010, the website published documents from a 2007 airstrike in Baghdad that showed US military officers fatally shooting 18 civilians from a helicopter.
They released war documents from Afghanistan that painted a grim picture of the war there, including more civilian deaths and Taliban attacks on US forces than had been reported, and hinted at Iran’s involvement in the insurgency.
They also released the Iraq War documents – which revealed about 15,000 more civilian casualties than the government had admitted.
Massie suspected that Assange’s case could become a turning point in the presidential election. “Whether or not we have to uphold our 200-plus year tradition of supporting press freedom,” Massie told DailyMail.com.
“This is a very popular topic among Americans, i.e. to obtain clemency for Julian Assange. And while it’s not as important as immigration or the economy to the two Americans, I think most Americans are on our side. And it’s not just the right thing to do. It would be politically expedient for one of these presidential candidates to take our position.’
He warned that they will have to draw votes from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as a third-party candidate and has promised to pardon Assange.
Massie also noted that Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, recently said on Tim Pool’s podcast that he had changed his mind about pardoning Assange and Wikileaks co-founder Edward Snowden.
“Years ago, when this started happening, I would have said no,” Trump Jr. said. One hundred percent you have to let those guys out because they caught us doing the things we said we weren’t going to do.’
“My worldview, the America that I wanted to believe existed, it doesn’t exist,” Trump Jr. continued.
Massie said, ‘When RFK, Jr. takes this issue to heart, the question here in the US is who takes RFK Jr. more votes from? Will he take more votes from the Democrats, or will he take more votes from the Republicans, and I think they’re both Biden and Trump are in a dangerous situation if they don’t come up with a position on this.’
“If either of them would, they would instantly, I think, sort of neutralize that third-party threat that can erode their own days,” he continued.