Here’s the thing — you’re really not supposed to lie in court. Everyone knows that. It’s against the law. Whether it’s in the United States or the United Kingdom, if there’s anywhere on earth that you’re going to tell the truth — it best be in a courtroom. The consequences of the alternative are frankly pretty dire.
If anyone in the world knows this fact to be true, it’s those who spend most of their entire lives inside a courtroom — lawyers.
Now I’m not sitting here saying that attorneys are the epitome of truth. Far from it, frankly. But the fact of the matter is, typically they know where the line is as far as what they can and can’t get away with. They may attempt to distort the facts, they work hard to twist the interpretation of laws to fit whatever their agenda may be that day. But for the most part, their basis lies in fact at the end of the day — especially when they’re actually in the courtroom.
And that’s what makes today’s revelation so very huge.
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Appearing before the courts in the United Kingdom, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s attorney alleged that when the Trump administration determined that they couldn’t take “control” of the situation with Assange through the prospect of a presidential pardon, the White House then turned to extorting the WikiLeaks founder via threats of prosecution.
Defense: “Whole pardon business shows that just as prosecution was initiated in December 2017 so after this meeting for political purposes. So too did Trump administration use the threat of prosecution as a means of extortion to obtain personal political advantage from Assange.”
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 24, 2020
To be clear, Assange is currently battling extradition to the United States, where he will immediately face prosecution at the hands of the Trump administration, a move that Assange and his attorneys are asserting is nothing more than a “political prosecution” personally backed by Trump who was unable to get a handle on the WikiLeaks mastermind with loads of damning information against him through the “nice” promise of a pardon.
According to Assange and his team, this is Trump’s version of the “hard way” after the WikiLeaks founder didn’t cave to the president’s “easy way” option.
This is bad enough in and of itself. But it would certainly make even bigger waves should the UK courts ultimately side with Assange, deny his extradition, and continue with far lesser charges against him across the pond. In that case, the United Kingdom, one of this nation’s biggest allies, would essentially now see the US as no better than any other country that prosecutes its people based solely on an individual’s slight against the nation’s dictator — the very thing that this country has fought against since its founding.
And that is not a good thing. It’s not a good thing at all.
Featured image via screen capture
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