That Julian Assange isn't verified yet is an absolute joke.
Whatever else you think about him, he is still a person of significant influence in the world, and there are dozens of fake accounts pretending to be his that regularly fool news outlets.
This is the very use case that the verification system was designed for, and yet still no verification.
Nope, he's tried (and has been trying for a while [0]), and he regularly calls Twitter out for it and the trouble it causes him due to news outlets getting confused by impersonators.
Whatever else you think about him, he is still a person of significant influence in the world, and there are dozens of fake accounts pretending to be his that regularly fool news outlets.
This is the very use case that the verification system was designed for, and yet still no verification.