Consortium News is virtually “inside” the courtroom at Old Bailey, viewing the proceedings by video-link and we filed this report on Day Ten of Julian Assange’s resumed extradition hearing.
Old Bailey (Wikimedia Commons)
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Fairbanks Testifies Trump
Ordered Assange Arrest
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
11:48 am EDT: Journalist Cassandra Fairbanks testified that President Donald Trump had personally ordered Julian Assange’s arrest from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in April 2019.
Cassandra Fairbanks (Twitter)
Fairbanks said she learned in October 2018 directly from Arthur Schwartz, a Trump backer and member of the president’s inner circle, that the U.S. would have Assange taken from the Ecuadorian embassy; that he would only be charged with the Chelsea Manning leaks and not for the Vault 7 CIA or DNC email releases; that the U.S. would again go after Manning to testify against Assange; that Richard Grenell, then U.S. ambassador to Germany and later director of national intelligence, had worked out a deal with Ecuador to hand Assange over, that the order to get Assange had come directly from Trump and that the U.S. would not seek the death penalty to make extradition possible.
All of these things came true, Fairbanks’ testified. Armed with this information she traveled to London from Washington and met with Assange at the embassy where she revealed these details to him.
Upon return she says she was contacted by Schwartz who was furious because he learned of her informing Assange, evidently through surveillance at the embassy. When she tweeted about this Grenell contacted her employer at The Gateway Pundit and tried to have her fired. A panicked Schwartz informed her that there was an investigation into who leaked this information to her. Fairbanks has posted the audio recording of Schwartz’s call in which he fears going to jail.
She testified that Schwartz said Assange and everyone else at WikiLeaks should get “lethal injections.”
Her testimony was read by defense lawyer Edward Fitzgerald after the government objected. But defense argued that hearsay rules do not apply to political testimony. Her testimony, especially of Trump’s role, bolstered the defense argument that Assange’s prosecution is political and therefore violates the U.S.-UK extradition treaty.
It was probably best for the prosecution to forgo cross examination, say nothing and just let Fairbanks’ testimony be read in court. She stated she was a WikiLeaks supporter so the prosecutor couldn’t go after her for hiding bias. It would have been difficult to pick apart her testimony, especially as she has recordings. And the prosecution would not have wanted to go near surveillance at the embassy nor that Trump ordered the arrest.
9:38 am EDT: Prosecution argued it only learned in the morning of the next scheduled defense witness, journalist Andy Worthington, and did not have sufficient to time to prepare cross examination. Extraordinary, as the prosecution has repeatedly been told by defense witnesses that they are being sent a bundle of prosecution documents sometimes only hours before they were to testify, giving them no time to prepare for cross examination.
It appears Worthington will not appear as a witness and that journalist Cassandra Fairbanks may be up next.
US Concedes WikiLeaks Was Not First
to Publish Unredacted Diplomatic Cables;
But Says it Had Widest Reach
8:24 am EDT: The prosecution Monday morning was trying to establish that even if WikiLeaks was not the first to publish the unredacted State Department cables containing informants’ names (even though only Julian Assange is the only one being prosecuted for it), it made WikiLeaks more liable than others who published first because WikiLeaks has a larger reach on the internet and included a search engine with the files, unlike those who published the cables before it.
It is a curious argument from the government in that until this point it tried to establish that WikiLeaks was first, or the only one, to publish. The indictment against Assange makes no mention of the chronology of publishing, which is crucial because as the defense is trying to establish, WikiLeaks would not have published the unredacted archive at all if others had not done so first. It could amount to selective prosecution.
The turn in prosecution argument is similar to it dropping its contention that Assange is not a journalist by making it clear that the U.S. is not precluded from charging a member of the media for disclosing national defense information.
Grothoff (YouTube)
7:20 am EDT: Defense witness Christian Grothoff, a professor of computer science at Bern University, Switzerland has laid out the chronology of the publication of the unredacted State Dept. cables that are at the heart of this case.
He traces it back to the publication of the password in the Feb. 2011 book by David Leigh and Luke Harding. Grothoff then explained that the German publication Freitag wrote on Aug. 25, 2011 about the password being available in the book, which led to the cables being published on Aug. 31 on a torrent site, followed by their publication by Cryptome.org on Sept. 1.
WikiLeaks then published it on Sept. 2. Grothoff testified that WikiLeaks was a “responsible publisher” that tried to protect the unredacted cables. Defense attorney Mark Summers on direct asked Grothoff if the files were still available on Cryptome.
Grothoff: “Yes I accessed them last week.”
Summers: “Was Cryptome ever prosecuted for this?”
Grothoff: “The defense never provided me with information, no.”
On cross examination, prosecutor Joel Smith attempted, as the prosecution has with virtually every defense witness, to undermine Grothoff’s impartiality.
Smith: “Can you think of anything that shows you are not impartial?”
Grothoff: “I don’t know what you are thinking about. Obviously we know that Mr, Assange did publish information about war crimes by governments, which makes him a sympathetic character. But that does not make me partial.”
Smith then said that Grothoff had signed an open letter to President Donald Trump in 2017 asking that he end the grand jury and drop all charges against Assange because of the threat to press freedom it represented. Grothoff said he didn’t remember signing the letter.
Grothoff: “I have a view that this prosecution is unfair but I only tried to look if there was a case for the prosecution and I did not find it.”
Smith: “You are biased, you are partial.”
Grothoff: “No you are confusing actions WikiLeaks took to hide these cables. So when you say WikiLeaks published these cable first, you are wrong and did not do your homework. It is unfair to accuse Mr. Assange of publishing those cables.”
Smith: “When you first signed that letter did you have knowledge of the release of the unredacted cables?”
Grothoff: “Yes. Even at that time it seemed clear to me the primary publisher was not WikiLeaks because they were known for being responsible. So I had knowledge it lost control of the cables.” On cross examination, Mark Summers for the defense, said that among other signers of the letter to Trump were former U.S. military and intelligence figures, judges and members of the German Bundestag.
The prosecution brought up an open vote that WikiLeaks conducted on Twitter and Facebook on Sept. 1, 2011, after the files had been published on Kryptome. The vote was on whether or not WikiLeaks should also now release the cables. Smith told the court that the “global vote” was 100 to 1 to publish.
What was not raised by the defense on re-direct examination is that the main reason given during the debate before the vote was that governments would be most likely to find the files on Cryptome, or decrypt the files themselves from the password that Leigh had made available, and that WikiLeaks wanted to use its wider reach to alert informants whose names had been revealed to seek safety.
Grothoff had testified on direct examination that Assange had been extremely reluctant to give Leigh the pass code to the entire unredacted archives, but eventually gave in. On redirect, Summers read a passage from Leigh’s book in which The Guardian journalist pressured Assange to give him the entire cache. Assange had offered to give Leigh 50 percent of the archive. Leigh and Harding wrote:
“Leigh refused. All or nothing, he said. ‘What happens if you end up in an orange jump-suit en route to Guantánamo before you can release the full files?’ In return he would give Assange a promise to keep the cables secure, and not to publish them until the time came.”
Grothoff said he saw mention of Guantanamo as part of the pressure that WikiLeaks had been put under. At the time, on Sept. 1 2011, The Guardian issued a statement:
“It’s nonsense to suggest the Guardian’s WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way.
“Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.
“It was a meaningless piece of information to anyone except the person(s) who created the database.
“No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files. That they didn’t do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardian’s book.”
It is possible this was all a screw up. It’s also possible that no one at WikiLeaks saw the book until the Freitag article.
The prosecution appeared to be trying to muddy the waters by bringing up 133,000 diplomatic files that WikiLeaks published in August 2011, before the released of the unredacted cables. These files came from the U.S. missions in numerous countries including Iran, China, Russia, Israel, Yemen, Syria, Australia, Bahrain and Zimbabwe. Grothoff testified that he analyzed all of these files and found that none were classified.
The government alleges the names of some informants appeared in some of these documents. German journalist John Goetz, who testified for the defense last Wednesday, said that while some of these documents were marked “Strictly Protect,” it did not men informants’ names were present.
5:01 am EDT: Court is in session. First defense witness is Christian Grothoff, a professor of computer science at Bern University, Switzerland. Network security and cryptography are his specialities. He was asked to investigate of the unredacted chache of diplomatic cables in September 2011.
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Trump is what he is: Zio Nazi – who serves Israel.
Free Julian Assange Now!
“It could amount to selective prosecution.” It definitely is selective prosecution.
‘ . . . ” if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files. That they didn’t do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardian’s book.”
It is possible this was all a screw up. It’s also possible that no one at WikiLeaks saw the book until the Freitag article.’
The issue was that the WikiLeaks site had been mirrored following a DDOS attack, including some mirrors with the encrypted file containing the unredacted cables. There was no way to take down all those site – WikiLeaks didn’t have control of them, even if they could identify all the mirrors. And no way to change the password. (All acccording to Grothoff.) What WikiLeaks did (whether intentionally or not) was to make the mirrors with encrypted files harder to find by proliferating mirrors. But soon after the Freitag article was published, someone published the unencrypted files (someone got in before Cryptome, even, apparently) and then Cryptome did.
Although, I don’t profess to be religious, there’s a passage in the Bible where Jesus states, They appear as Whitewashed Tombs which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of Dead man’s bones? That perfectly sums up the United States of America! Outwardly it tries to present itself as a unblemished beacon of light & Truth but on the inside is a rotten, smelly, cankerous copse full of murder, falsehood & lies! Unlike your former Tyrants such as Hitler in Nazi Germany or Mussolini in Italy or Stalin in Russia, those Leaders never hid who they were as Fascists! But not America & its corrupt Leaders such as Trump, they hide, who they truly are, behind a veneer of self righteousness that is sickening to behold & so hypocritical that it defies belief? This sham Court case should be thrown out & Assange must be immediately released due to Trump’s Political interference which under the UK’s extradition laws, invalidates Assange’s extradition to the US! Also, as the Case revealed, Assange wasn’t the first Journalist to release the information so he can’t be charged for this crime. What Assange’s persecution has revealed is how evil & despicable the United States of America is & no one will be sorry to see this bankrupt, cowardly bully, disappear off the World stage once its collapse, which is already underway, happens! Good riddance!
Jesus, if existed was a great revolutionary attempting to free his people from foreign invaders.
He does not have ANYthing in common with control-freaks, perverts who dress funny and wear red shoes or any other monotheistic “deities”.
Mother Nature/God RULE!
There is something that does not compute regarding the guardian’s statement about publishing the password. I read this book and David Leigh and Luke Harding describe in 3rd person the way they pressed Assange to give them the password in case something were to happen to him and the files would be lost. And then they say they were told the password was meaningless……..and they were told it would expire directly……they did not say this in the book but in this statement long after this was questioned….
I will preface this comment with the info that I have the utmost respect for Cassandra and will never forget the middle of the night she stood outside Julian’s London Ecuadorian home and approached the car that the two undercover guys were watching out and she spoke to them. It turns out they were the two standing on the steps craning their necks as Julian was hauled out of Ecuadorian territory. What I wish to add now is this: ” …defense argued that hearsay rules do not apply to political testimony”. The defense sees the fact that President Trump ordered this is hearsay. Yes, Julian was hauled out and arrested. We can’t say for sure that it was the decision of the President.
I AM COMMENTING BUT REALISE MY COMMENTS AND MY PERSONAL INFO ARE NOT PRIVATE. NOT THAT I CARE. AS ALL THAT IS ON THE NET IS ACCESSIBLE , BY SMART COMPUTER USERS.AND GOVT. SPIES CIA MI5 ETC.
THIS ATTEMPT TO EXTRADICT JULIAN ASSANGE IS POLITICAL FROM POTUS TRUMP. AND THE COURT TRIAL IS A KANGAROO COURT ,A WASTE OF TIME OF MANY PEOPLE WITH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO TO OVERCOME THE EVIL ACTS OF PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENTS , TO SUPPRESS THE “SLAVES” ,THE PEOPLE WHO LABOUR TO MAKE LIFE BETTER. THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION WILL CONTINUE AND WILL BE VICTORIOUS ,UNLESS AN IDIOT IS ABLE TO PRESS THE NUCLEAR BUTTON….SUCCIDE AND PLANET DEATH.
Wonderful reporting! How are we to know what’s going on without Consortium News? I will donate to the cause.
No More War
This in shocking news to me that it was the strutting but clueless President Donald J. Trump to order Assange’s arrest from the Ecuadorian Embassy. Trump, who arbitrarily places sanctions upon sanctions on any nation that doesn’t allow US corporations to call shots, who backs out of multinational treaties/agreements on whim, who orders assassinations of military generals in US occupied lands… and the list goes on!!! And what kind of a nation do we have that allows such dictatorial behavior of our leader? We know what fascism is – it’s corporate controlled, militaristic rule by a nation. Congress turned us schmucks over to fascism when they blessed the ‘Authorization for Use of Military Force Act’ on to the second most strutting but clueless President, George W. Bush, September, 2001. Welcome to the monkey house!
MOST PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENTS ARE GOVERNING TO BENEFIT THEMSELVES AND THOSE WHO SUPPORTED TO GET INT OFFICE. THEY WILL COLABORATE IN ANY WAY TO FURTHER THEIR PERSONAL INTEREST. ECUADOR BEFITTED FROM USA TO LET UK INTO EMBASSY TO ARREST JULIAN . THE SECRET CONSPIRACY BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS UNDERLIES ALL THE EVIL ACTS AND CRIMES AND CONSTANT WARS . THAT IS WHY THEY TRY TO STOP JULIAN ASSANGE FROM EXPOSING THEIR DIRTY LINEN. WE,THE ORDINARY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD ,UNITED BY THE INTERNET ,MUST CONTINUE TO RESIST AND WE WILL CLEANSE THESE EVIL PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENTS…BY REVEALING THEIR HYPOCRACY AND THROWING THEM OUT OF OFFICE BY VOTING THEM OUT, BY DEMONSTRATIONS, AND RESISTANCE IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE
It seems like after it was determined in court that WikiLeaks wasn’t even the first one to publish the unredacted cables, the prosecution’s argument has now degenerated to the point where the true agenda of political censorship for a tyrannical empire might just click with even the most twisted logic of an average lickspittle. The defense has been winning big and it’s obvious to the public (the ones that are paying any attention) to the point where it will be a PR nightmare for the UK and US governments if the extradition somehow continues.
This is getting more amazing day after day. I think something is fixing to blow. However it goes down, Julian Assange will be remembered in history assuming there is one.
My bet is roughly 66% that there will be this history to be remembered forever and that we will all revel in it. Of course, that other 1/3 rd chance is out there and if that happens, then it will all be forgotten. Forever. Oh yeah, there is that last 1% chance, but that is most uncertain.
What a bunch of bullshit it all is. Stupid puppets and stupid psychopaths. We will all get our due especially the psychopaths.
There is a good background piece on Fairbanks’ testimony from Politico dated February 24, 2020. (Not sure of policies here providing links, but the Politico piece can be easily searched.) One of the important quotes from the article:
“I need to let Julian’s lawyers and family know that the president personally ordered an anti WikiLeaks ambassador from a country uninvolved in the case to secure Julian’s arrest,” Fairbanks told Schwartz on October 30, 2018, via the encrypted messaging app Signal, according to screenshots provided to Politico. “It’s clear he’s a political prisoner and his health is deteriorating rapidly. I don’t know if it will matter to them, but it seems important, and they should know.”
Selective prosecution is the enforcement or prosecution of criminal laws against a particular class of persons and the simultaneous failure to administer criminal laws against others out-side the targeted class. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that selective prosecution exists where the enforcement or prosecution of a CRIMINAL LAW is “directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons … with a mind so unequal and oppressive” that the administration of the criminal law amounts to a practical denial of EQUAL PROTECTION of the law (United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 116 S. Ct. 1480, 134 L. Ed. 2d 687 [1996], quoting YICK WO V. HOPKINS, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 30 L. Ed. 220 [1886]). Specifically, police and prosecutors may not base the decision to arrest a person for, or charge a person with, a criminal offense based on “an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification” (United States v. Armstrong, quoting Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 82 S. Ct. 501, 7 L. Ed. 2d 446 [1962]).
Thanks for this information.
THIS KANGAROO TRIAL IS SUCH A WASTE OF TIME. WHY BOTHER WITH FACTS, LAWS ,TRUTH. THE CASE IS ALREADY DECIDED /ENDED BEFORE IT BEGAN… “““`UP TO PEOPLE IN LONDON TO BLOCK JULIAN TAKEN TO USA. …
It is a show and tell about a disingenuous prosecution and judge for all to see. (minus technological glitches)
A defense team countering the abuse of processes, revealing to the public a personal nightmare.
No reason to insult Kangaroos!
I’m with you no reason to deny what this trial really is. A nazi tribunal.
A witch hunt a travesty and a pox on the good of mankind.
From: Law Library – American Law and Legal Information Free Legal Encyclopedia: Secretary to SHAs
Laws are only as good as the civilized people who follow them.