
Assange offered pardon if he co-operated over email leak, UK court hears - hownottowrite
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange/trump-offered-to-pardon-assange-if-he-co-operated-over-email-leak-uk-court-hears-idUSKBN20D2A2
======
sschueller
This makes no sense. Julian already stated that Russia had nothing to do with
the DNC leaks.

From wikipedia [1]:

On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence
Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election
to prevent Hillary Clinton[11] from winning the presidency.[12] Multiple U.S
intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave
WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.[12] WikiLeaks
did not reveal its source. Later Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, claimed
that the source of the emails was not Russia.[13]

Can we get a transcript from what was said in court?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak)

~~~
three_seagrass
>Julian already stated that Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.

That's wrong, and is spreading misinformation:

\- Julian Assange said that _his source_ was not Russian Intelligence.

\- Julian Assange _did not_ say that the hacks were not Russian.

It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks
performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU.

~~~
harry8
"It is well known that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction."

This Russia link is stated so often without a shred of evidence on the
authority of known liars I think we're safe to say it's less likely than 50:50
at this point. I'll change my mind for credible evidence of which nobody has
that they can share.

Evidence. Put up or shut up. The motive for spreading that lie, if it is a lie
as seems more than plausible is as as big as the WMD lie are obvious.

Or at least be honest enough to say you still believe WMD as i did before
evidence.

~~~
meowface
There's a fair bit of evidence in Mueller's report:
[https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf).
But probably the most damning evidence is still highly classified.

There's evidence released by private firms, including ThreatConnect, FireEye,
CrowdStrike, Fidelis, and Dell SecureWorks, who have been tracking Russian
intelligence groups, including the ones that they allege hacked the DNC, for
many years prior:

* [https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recen...](https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recent-claims/)

* [https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28...](https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28.html)

* [https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...](https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/)

* [https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-...](https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-analysis-dnc-intrusion-malware/)

* [https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...](https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign)

(There are varying degrees of technical details in each report, but I
recommend reading them all to get a full picture.)

Dutch intelligence says they hacked GRU computers and cameras and observed the
hacks as they were happening: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/01/dutch...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/01/dutch-intelligence-hacked-video-cameras-in-office-of-
russians-who-hacked-dnc/). They contacted NSA, and this may have been the
first time US intelligence became aware of this.

The evidence is so comprehensive, Mueller was able to name 12 of the GRU
officers who conducted the breaches:
[https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download).
This indictment gets extremely specific, to the point of what software they
were running and when, what they were searching for, how they got the funding
to buy the VPN access they used to register the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account,
exactly what they said and sent to Wikileaks, etc. This goes into very
granular detail. Here's an excerpt:

>Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked
the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work
accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell
commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server. 30.

>On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade
custom AMS software on the server. That day, the AMS panel received updates
from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC
computers.

There is essentially a global consensus among intelligence and security
organizations, governmental and private, that Russian intelligence was behind
the DNC hack and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. By contrast, not a single entity
other than the US government backed the Iraq WMD claims, and there wasn't any
sort of specific public claims made beyond "they have WMDs". Here, Mueller's
reports make hundreds of very specific, narrow claims.

If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence
in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified
evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian
government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch
gave them).

As for whether Assange was aware of any of this or suspected it; who knows.
It's very likely "Guccifer 2.0" / GRU would have maintained their cover while
sending him information. Doesn't really make sense for them to be like "hey,
Russia here, here's some stuff you might want". He's smart, though, and surely
was (or at least is now) aware of the possibility.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible
> evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of
> classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU
> and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with
> what the Dutch gave them).

If you're offering... yes please.

I've seen some good RAND Corp write ups, and others on security blogs, to
include one of those you listed, but a reasonably concise omnibus would be
nice.

~~~
meowface
I want to and may get around to it eventually, but my infosec day job is
occupying quite a bit of my time at the moment. If there's still contention
around this in this sub-thread, that'll increase the odds I'll try to do it.
(If most repliers are in agreement with the conclusion, not too much point of
it.)

And just an aside unrelated to your post: I know the WMD error/lie/both
depending on who was saying it has severely tarnished the credibility of the
US intelligence community, as it should have, but it'd also be unempirical to
disregard everything they ever say afterwards no matter how many decades
later, especially when there seems to be near-universal independent agreement.

Purely speculatively, I suspect this was all very intentional of Russian
intelligence, and perhaps Putin himself (if reports of his personal
involvement are accurate; given his past field experience in intelligence, it
seems plausible).

For example, that's one reason they began sending phishing emails the same day
Trump gave his "Russia, if you're listening" comment/joke. They knew what kind
of look that would create. They knew that whatever they did would be
vehemently denied by Trump and his supporters and aggressively pounced on by
his detractors and drive a huge wedge through the country and create wild
disagreement about the integrity of this and future elections. The "metagame"
(interpretation, backlash, and other butterfly effects) may have been much
more of the goal than the game itself (releasing the compromised emails, which
really weren't that juicy beyond things we already knew like bias against
Bernie, the only exception being the Donna Brazile thing; though the
perception and theories may have done much more damage than the actual facts).
The mere appearance of Russian manipulation and the debates over whether it's
ruining us or is a conspiracy theory achieves a significant objective without
having to do hardly anything at all.

Maybe I'll write a big blog post about this whole thing, since I've ranted
about this kind of meta-manipulation idea at length before (not that it's a
novel proposition, or anything) in addition to debates about the evidence.
First I'd need to make a blog, though.

------
_bxg1
The level of brazen corruption this administration has been getting away with
is absolutely staggering. At least when Nixon did it people had the decency to
be upset. There's not even a pretense of integrity any more; this is the new
normal.

Our democracy is crumbling.

~~~
tmaly
I see it as a signal to noise ratio. Back during Nixon times, the traditional
media had a captive audience. There are many more forms of media today spread
out among many narrow niches. People get lost in their own worlds

~~~
rstuart4133
> Back during Nixon times, the traditional media had a captive audience.

Possibly more to the point, Nixon attacked the traditional media and they were
our sole source of news. So when he pissed them off he had no way of getting
an alternative view point out there.

Trump has also pissed off the media of course, but now they no longer have a
monopoly over what the the public gets to hear. He famously bypassed them with
his tweats to get his own narrative out there.

That was enough to get him through the impeachment, because he it's allowed
him to keep most of his base. Had he lost his base like Nixon did the
republicans would have turned on him to put as much distance between him and
their next election as possible, just as they did with Nixon.

But I suspect it may not be enough to get him past 2020. He has pissed off a
lot of people. Pissed them off enough to make them want to vote. Using
advertising targeted via the email leaks was enough get his voters to the
ballot box while at the same time the other side of politics was asleep at the
wheel, secure in the knowledge they would win, so they didn't bother putting a
matching effort in. That ain't going to happen this time around. Trump has
done all the hard work required to get the democrat voters to the ballot box.

------
falcolas
Seems perfectly reasonable.

Torture, err, solitary confinement.

Interrogate, err, coerce statement, err, offer a pardon in exchange for the
statement they want to hear, err, for a truthful and honest statement.

Imply that the torture, err, solitary confinement will continue if the honest
statement is not made.

Yup, all perfectly reasonable. /s

~~~
crunchatized
Rohrabacher visited Assange in August 2017, when this offer supposedly took
place. [1]

Assange wasn't placed in solitary confinement, a form of torture, until 2019,
after he was arrested by UK authorities.

Of course in 2017, he was being arbitrarily detained, [2] which while not
torture, was a violation of his human rights, and had been ongoing since the
Obama administration with no end in sight.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabacher.house.gov/media-
center/press-releases/rohrabacher-assange-says-russia-not-behind-dnc-email-
leak)

[2]
[https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17013)

------
inscionent
"The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher"

That old chestnut, again.

~~~
nsdfg
"Dana Rohrabacher has been a great Congressman for his District"

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10593174266539335...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1059317426653933568)

------
crunchatized
> a witness statement by former U.S. Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher
> who had visited Assange in 2017, saying that he had been sent by the
> president to offer a pardon.

> The pardon would come on the condition that Assange complied with the U.S.
> by saying that the Russians were not involved in the email leak which hurt
> Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, Rohrabacher’s statement
> said.

Rohrabacher's witness statement says that he made this offer on Trump's behalf
with a condition attached. Rohrabacher's own statement in August 2017 says
that Assange met that condition in that same 3 hour meeting:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabacher.house.gov/media-
center/press-releases/rohrabacher-assange-says-russia-not-behind-dnc-email-
leak)

> Assange, said Rohrabacher, “emphatically stated that the Russians were not
> involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher, who
> chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and
> Emerging Threats, is the only U.S. congressman to have visited the
> controversial figure.

> The conversation ranged over many topics, said Rohrabacher, including the
> status of Wikileaks, which Assange maintains is vital to keeping Americans
> informed on matters hidden by their traditional media. The congressman plans
> to divulge more of what he found directly to President Trump.

------
shdh
Rohrabacher talked about this in 2017:
[https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/video/3731570-rohrabacher-
ma...](https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/video/3731570-rohrabacher-make-deal-
with-assange-to-disprove-russia-claims/)

------
nsdfg
Rohrabacher: "I told him that if he could provide me information and evidence
about who actually gave him the DNC emails, I would then call on President
Trump to pardon him."

[https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-
assa...](https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-assange)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200220001758/https://www.rohra...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200220001758/https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-
meeting-with-julian-assange)

------
ezoe
Isn't the whole the struggles and fiascos are about the suspect of him doing
rape or not? How could the totally unrelated email leaks be the reason to
grant a pardon?

This world is more rotten than you can ever imagine.

~~~
ryanlol
> Isn't the whole the struggles and fiascos are about the suspect of him doing
> rape or not?

Nope, those charges were dropped.

~~~
Traster
Is it the case that some of those charges passed the statute of limitations
while Assange was hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy? I think "charges were
dropped" is putting it a bit strongly.

~~~
ryanlol
AFAICT Sweden refused to interview and indict Assange as long as he remained
in the embassy. If that’s true then IMO “charges were dropped” isn’t putting
it a bit strongly.

Also AFAIK Swedish prosecutors wanted to drop these charges in _2013_ , but
the UK prosecutors dissuaded them from doing do.

Besides, not all of the Swedish charges hit statute of limitations.

