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BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA Thursday, April 11, 2019 |
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| WIKILEAKS' TIME IN THE BARREL |
| British police have arrested Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who, pending court battles in the U.K., might ultimately be extradited to the United States where he faces one charge of conspiring to hack a Defense Department computer.
Assange had been living and operating Wikileaks inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years, but on Thursday Ecuador revoked his asylum, clearing the way for law enforcement to take him into custody, and for the U.S. to unseal its conspiracy indictment.
The U.S. government has been furious with Assange since 2010 when he published a trove of classified materials he received from Chelsea Manning, which included damning information about U.S. conduct in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and thousands of unredacted diplomatic cables.
Manning ultimately spent seven years in prison before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. But throughout that period the Justice Department declined to take action against Assange in conjunction with the Manning leak, because indicting him for conduct related to his publication of that material would have created a precedent for charging journalists and their employers, who also publish hacked and leaked classified information, which would trample the First Amendment and have a chilling effect the free press.
DOJ has tried to circumvent that concern by indicting Assange for trying to help Manning hack into a classified government system, which, if she’d succeeded, would have allowed her to hide her digital tracks and make it harder for the government to identify her as Assange’s source.
The Manning incident occurred years before Assange came under suspicion for working with Russian intelligence to publish and hide the provenance of Democratic Party emails, which Russia stole in order to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election.
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| Though the Democratic Party generally advocates for expanding voting rights, including to people who’ve been convicted of felonies, Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate to call for allowing people to vote while incarcerated—a right that currently only exists in Maine and his home state of Vermont.
At a town hall in Iowa on Saturday, Sanders said: “In my state, what we do is separate. You’re paying a price, you committed a crime, you’re in jail. That’s bad. But you’re still living in American society, and you have a right to vote.”
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| European Union leaders have agreed to delay the Brexit deadline until October 31, which will allow Britain to avoid the chaotic no-deal departure that was scheduled for Friday. “Please do not waste this time,” said European Council president Donald Tusk. Good adivce. Now lets shamble toward Bre-entry.
Sudan’s longtime president Omar al-Bashir has been deposed in a coup after months of nationwide protests calling for his removal. Bashir, who has been accused of war crimes and genocide, is the second authoritarian leader to be removed in North Africa in under two weeks—Algeria’s longtime president was removed from power as well last week—amid popular uprisings that resemble the Arab Spring.
The son of a sheriff’s deputy in Louisiana has been charged with arson for allegedly starting three fires that burned black churches in a 10-day-span in a single Louisiana parish.
Ohio has become the sixth state to pass legislation prohibiting physicians from performing abortions when they can detect fetal heartbeats—as early as six weeks into pregnancy. This is one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws, and has been blocked by courts in two other states.
Michael Avenatti has been indicted on 36 counts of fraud, perjury, failure to pay taxes, embezzlement, and other financial crimes by a federal grand jury. Avenatti allegedly stole millions of dollars from five clients, including a paraplegic man with mental illness, and used shell companies to cover it up. Note, these crimes are distinct from the other federal charges he faces for allegedly trying to extort Nike, which makes all those “Michael Avenatti is winning the Democratic primary” hot takes from last year look pretty spicy!
The Justice Department has indicted President Obama’s former White House counsel Greg Craig in connection with Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation for making false statements and concealing information from federal authorities about work he did for Ukraine in 2012.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to raise $1 trillion with a seven percent tax on the profits of corporations with profits over $100 million. This would prevent giants like Amazon and 1,200 of the country’s other largest companies from exploiting loopholes to avoid paying federal taxes.
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| When Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s older sister, retired as a federal appellate judge earlier this year, it ended an investigation of whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings (including the president). A substantial investigation by the New York Times last year found that the Trump family engaged in outright fraud and other tax schemes to significantly increase the wealth they inherited from their father. Barry not only benefited from these schemes, she was a co-owner of one of the shell companies they used to carry them out.
Four people filed complaints to the court based on this information, but 10 days after they were told the matter was under investigation, Barry filed retirement papers. As a retired federal appellate judge, Barry is no longer held to judicial conduct rules, so the investigation is over, but she will still receive annual compensation equivalent to her approximately $200,000 salary every year, as all retired judges are entitled to.
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| Thousands of people attended a memorial service for musician, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Nipsey Hussle at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Thursday. Though millions continue to mourn Hussle, who was killed in a shooting outside his clothing store two weeks ago, the service celebrated his life and rich legacy—one President Barack Obama commemorated in a letter Hussle's friend and business partner Karen Civil read aloud at the service:
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