WikiLeaks founder not to be charged over CIA leak, report says
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not expected to face charges over leaking classified documents belonging to the CIA, a report says.
Assange has to be charged within 60 days of his first indictment, which was filed in March, according to a Politico report on Sunday.
Federal prosecutors have accused Assange of publishing the documents, known as “Vault 7,” as well as helping whistleblower Chelsea Manning access military computers.
“There is no question that there are leak cases that can’t be prosecuted against the leaker or the leakee because the information is so sensitive that, for your proof at trial, you would have to confirm it is authentic,” Mary McCord, who served as acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department until 2017, told the publication. “So the irony, often, is that the higher the classification of the leaked material, the harder it is to prosecute.”
Assange will be prosecuted under the initial count and 17 counts of Espionage Act violations but will face no charges over the 2017 publication of information relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s hacking capabilities.
The United States claims Assange committed espionage, saying he unlawfully published the names of classified sources and conspired with Manning, an assisted ex-Army intelligence analyst, to obtain access to classified information. Assange could be imprisoned for decades.
The whistleblower was granted asylum by Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa, after he took refuge in the country’s embassy in 2012. Ecuador's current president, Lenin Moreno, however, revoked the asylum and recently allowed police to arrest him.
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