Biden Would Need His Pound of Flesh From Assange, by Joe Lauria

Can a deal be worked out for the release of Julian Assange? From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

The U.S. president would not likely move on the case without some face-saving measure to ward off pressure from the C.I.A. and his own party, writes Joe Lauria. 

The coming days or weeks could be the most pivotal in imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s four-year legal drama. There are five possible scenarios:

• Assange may have his appeal against extradition heard by the High Court;
• He may have his appeal rejected and be put on a plane to the United States;
• That plane may be stopped by an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights;
• A last-minute plea deal may be worked out guaranteeing Assange’s eventual freedom or, least likely
• the U.S. may abruptly drop its charges against him.  

Following the decision by High Court Judge Sir Jonathan Swift this month to reject Assange’s application to appeal his ordered extradition to the United States to stand trial on espionage charges, Assange’s legal team filed a new application to the High Court last week.  The decision on this application could come any day.  

If it is refused, Assange will have run out of legal options in Britain, and could only be saved by the intervention of the European court. There is also still a chance of a plea deal in which President Joe Biden would need to exact punishment of Assange to cover his political posterior.  

Given new revelations in the UC Global case in Spain about C.I.A. spying on Assange there’s even an outside chance the Biden administration may drop the case to avoid exposure in the media circus that would ensue in Alexandria, VA if Assange is extradited to stand trial there.

Continue reading