6 False Claims Made by Media About Assange & WikiLeaks in Relation to Mueller’s Russia Investigation
by 21st Century Wire
January 8, 2019
This week, Reuters news agency reported how WikiLeaks had disseminated an email to the press entitled, “Assange & WikiLeaks inaccurate and defamatory claims,” listing 140 things which journalists should not be saying about Assange.
The letter first prefaced WikiLeaks’ stellar record as a journalism outlet, followed by a list of false claims currently circulating freely across the western corporate mainstream media.
According to the statement released by WikiLeaks this week:
“Julian Assange has published the largest leaks in the history of the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the government of Saudi Arabia, among many others, as well as saving Edward Snowden from arrest. Predictably, numerous falsehoods have been subsequently spread about WikiLeaks and its publisher.”
“Falsehoods have also been spread by third parties: media competitors, click-bait sites, political party loyalists, and by those linked to the governments WikiLeaks or Julian Assange are litigating or have litigated (U.K., U.S., Ecuador, Sweden), which seek his arrest (U.S., U.K.), expulsion (Ecuador), or who have formal criminal investigations (U.S., Saudi Arabia, Australia), or who have banned or censored WikiLeaks (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China).
“Since Mr. Assange’s unlawful isolation and gagging on March 28, 2018, the publication of false and defamatory claims about him has accelerated, perhaps because of an incorrect view that Mr. Assange, due to his grave personal circumstances, can no longer defend his reputation.”
One of the main reasons for this latest WikiLeaks publication appears to be an attempt to dispel and push-back against a virtual flood of misinformation fueled mainly by an increasingly desperate US corporate media and the Democratic Party establishment – who are attempting to attach Julian Assange and WikiLeaks with official conspiracy theory of ‘Trump-Russia Collusion.’
This speculation is also being promulgated by the obvious partisan witch hunt being conducted as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two year-old Russia Investigation, which has yet to uncover any real evidence of ‘Trump-Russia collusion.’
Here’s a summary of 6 major false claims in relation to the Mueller Investigation – made repeatedly across the mainstream media over the past year (our list is derived from a recent analysis from online journal Law & Crime):
1. To date, the Mueller Investigation has not even bothered to contact Julian Assange or WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks: “It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever been contacted by the Mueller investigation.”
In other words, despite all the media noise about Assange and WikiLeaks around the Mueller probe, Team Mueller has never bothered to contact Assange to get a statement on the matter. Could it be because any such testimony might end up obliterating the central premise of the Official Washington’s Trump-Russia conspiracy theory? Well, yes.
2. The U.S. has not charged Assange with any crime relating to the Mueller Investigation.
WikiLeaks: “It is false and defamatory to suggest that there is any evidence that the U.S. charges against Julian Assange relate to the Mueller investigation.”
In other words, even though the two are mentioned in tandem non-stop across the entire western mainstream corporate media, Assange is not actually a subject of the Mueller probe. While this may initially seem odd, few are asking the fundamental question, which is… why not? The answer to that question should be obvious to anyone with basic logic and critical thinking skills – but we’ll spell it out to you anyway: it’s because there is no evidence connecting Assange or WikiLeaks, to Trump or Russia.
3. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange were not involved in soliciting for, or hacking the DNC (aka the DNC leak).
WikiLeaks: “It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government claims that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks directed, conspired, colluded or otherwise engaged in a crime, to obtain information from the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta [in fact, the government has made no such claim].”
In other words, Assange hasn’t actually been accused of any crime relating to the DNC hack/leak. Assange also reiterated that WikiLeaks wasn’t alone in publishing “allegedly hacked Democratic Party materials.” Other mainstream media outlets also published the information including CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Hill, and The Intercept, to name only a few. On the flip side, Assange and WikiLeaks did not provide any material in advance of publication (or no publication) to any third-party. Reporters at Law & Crime also add here:
“WikiLeaks and Assange also denied they “privately provided information about its then pending 2016 U.S. election-related publications to any outside party, including Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, Donald Trump Jr., Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., Cambridge Analytica, or Rebekah Mercer [it is defamatory because it falsely imputes that Julian Assange acted without integrity in his role as the editor of WikiLeaks, associates with criminals, or has committed a crime].”
4. The was never any “back channel” between Assange and political fixer Roger Stone before or during the 2016 election.
Assange has stated, “there was no ‘backchannel’ between Julian Assange and Roger J. Stone during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election.”
In other words, Mueller and the entire US mainstream media have been attempting to advance the laughable conspiracy theory that either comedian Randy Credico, political fixer Roger Stone, or conspiracy author Jerome Corsi were acting as ‘middle men’ between Trump and WikiLeaks – no such plot ever existed. Again, there are no charges against Julian Assange relating to Mueller’s ‘Trump-Russia collusion’ probe.
5. WikiLeaks’ publication of the Podesta emails was not timed with the infamous Access Hollywood-Billy Bush tape.
Despite protestations by Clinton campaign boss John Podesta that WikiLeaks timed the release of the email dump, it was not made public to off-set the Trump campaign’s embarrassment over the audacious “pussy grabbing” audio release recorded 10 years earlier. Quite the opposite in fact, as evidence actually suggests that the release of the Access Hollywood tape was actually moved forward three days – in order to come out the same day as WikiLeaks’ publication of the Podesta emails.
6. Assange has never met or communicated with former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.
This was one of many planted stories in the mainstream media, led by The Guardian, designed to smear Assange and reinflate the rapidly collapsing Russiagate narrative. In December, the UK newspaper, The Guardian, published a completely fabricated story claiming the Manafort had met with Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on ‘multiple occasions.’
This was a fake news story cobbled together by The Guardian’s own serial fabricator-in-residence, disgraced journalist Luke Harding, and his partner in crime Dan Collyns. The fake news ruse by The Guardian appears to have been a PR stunt designed to press Assange into the Mueller Investigation frame – effectively pinning Assange and WikiLeaks to the Trump-Russia Collusion investigation.
As 21WIRE stated previously in its Review of 2018, the current campaign to slander and defame Assange is an intentional tactic by the transatlantic establishment, ahead of his likely extradition to the US following the revelation of a secret sealed Grand Jury indictment filed years earlier. Which ever way it goes, the establishment will have to show its true totalitarian face.
READ MORE RUSSIAGATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russiagate Files
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