Wikileaks Is An Agent Of Russia?

With all the treason talk in the USA right now, it is surely time to look into the allegation that Wikileaks is working for Putin. Julian, where did it all go wrong?

When we first heard of Julian Assange and Wikileaks all those years ago, we thought they were the good guys. They started out in 2006, in Iceland of all places. Back then they actually ran a Wiki, in the sense of a site which is maintained by volunteers collaborating on an open platform. Much in the way the older and more famous Wikipedia is run.

The first major leak that made big headlines was the footage taken from an American Apache helicopter in 2007. It showed Americans killing civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists. I don’t remember it, and it quickly faded from the news. Incredibly, for British readers, they received embarrassing memos about the failed bank, Northern Rock. The bank tried to get the memos taken down, without success. In 2008, the organisation published the manuals to Scientology, the whacko quasi-religious cult everyone loves to hate. Their very first document was obscure. Something about a Somali dissident who may or may not have been ordering executions.

Things started to go badly wrong for Wikileaks when Julian Assange was accused of rape and molestation by two women in Sweden. A series of cock-ups followed. The Swedish authorities initially dropped the case, then took it up again, then allowed Assange to leave the country. He went to England where he stayed with friends. As the legal cases mounted up, the Swedes tried to extradite him. The episode ended in farce, with Assange forced to seek refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Why did everything get so odd? For the simple reason, which seems odd on its face, that Assange believed the Swedes would extradite him to the USA, where he would face a trial that would most likely lead to decades in prison.

Strangely, Assange’s reason for evading justice in Sweden is flawed. He has never been charged by the US. Therefore there is no likelihood of extradition at all. He offered to face extradition to the US (even though there is no live indictment) if Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning, a Wikileaks source. Manning was pardoned. Assange still remains in London under the care of Ecuador. And now, in another twist, Assange has started a relationship with Baywatch Babe Pamela Anderson at the embassy.

As all of this was happening, Wikileaks really fell from grace during 2016. Their actions in revealing material from the US Democratic party has faced widespread criticism. Accused of collaborating with that ancient bogeyman, Russia, Wikileaks’s claim to unmask the truth took a tumble. They seemed to be saying that they would uncover the facts, but only against Western regimes. Russia’s rich trove of criminality has not been subject to the Wikileaks spotlight, and many of their servers have been traced to the country.

With all the treason talk hotting up in Washington, look out for more Wikileaks in the coming months. It must only be a matter of time before the US indicts Assange. He will then move from a somewhat benign investigator in Sweden, to face the full glare of the US criminal justice system.

It could be quite a year.