Joe Lauria explains the latest superseding indictment against Julian Assange, who still faces extradition to the U.S. for his supposed violations of the Espionage Act. Lauria’s take is that the new indictment is simply “window dressing,” meant to make Assange look bad by smearing his reputation in the minds of those who follow the case only from afar—the indictment, it turns out, doesn’t even contain any new charges. All along, the name of the game has been trying to make Assange out to be not a publisher of information he received from others, but an actual accomplice in the hacking of those secrets in the first place. Anyone who has been following Assange’s story closely from the beginning knows that this claim is completely untrue; what Assange does is no different than what any other investigative journalist does, except that he’s much better at it. If the American government can successfully extradite and convict Assange on these Espionage Act charges, says Lauria, they must do the same for the editors of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and every other mainstream media outlet in the country.

Discussed on the show:

“ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Assange Hit With New Superseding Indictment, Reflecting Possible FBI Sting Operation” (Consortium News)

“25 YEARS OF CN: ‘Journalists Are All Julian Assange’—Robert Parry, December 16, 2010” (Consortium News)

Collateral Murder

“Military Fails to Link Leaks With Any Deaths” (Courthouse News)

“State Department Cables” (WikiLeaks)

“Iraq War Logs” (WikiLeaks)

“Afghan War Diary” (WikiLeaks)

“In letter to the Lancet, doctors condemn torture of Assange and demand his release” (World Socialist Web Site)

Joe Lauria is the editor-in-chief at Consortium News. He is a former UN correspondent and wrote at the Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal. You can follow him on Twitter @unjoe.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J64wVKtsUs

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys on the line, I've got the great Joe Lauria. He is the editor of consortium news.com. And he's got such an important piece here. Assange hit with new superseding indictment spit, reflecting possible FBI sting operation Yeah, who would have thought that Welcome back to the show. Joe. How are you sir?

Joe Lauria 0:58

Thank you, Scott. I'm fine. Good to talk. Again,

Scott Horton 1:00

yeah, for those not familiar, the hero, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was published such great information over the years already has been indicted. He's in custody in England. And but he's been indicted in the United States over skipping bail on a fake charge. But he's already indicted in the United States on Espionage Act charges. They're saying he's not a publisher like the New York Times, but he's a co conspirator in getting the leak. With then Bradley now Chelsea Manning back in 2010, the Iraq War Logs, Guantanamo files,