President Trump & Julian Assange

Despite the perpetual tweets from Donald Trump and his followers, claiming the election was rigged, the Supreme Court and the Electoral College has spoken, for good or ill, Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. It is a tradition that every president at the end of their tenure, pardon certain people who are under indictment or are incarcerated for a crime that they have committed or not. Social media has turned on fire over the last few weeks, requesting that Trump pardon Julian Assange.

In these unpredictable times, even the right-wing politician, Sara Palin posted a tweet describing her wish for a pardon for Assange. Evidently, the woman had a genuine epiphany that the prosecution of the publisher is a direct violation of the First Amendment of the United States. Many people were delighted to see this. However, the permanent governments of the US and Britain are hell-bent on his trial and imprisonment.

A recording was also released on Twitter of Assange calling the US State dept., informing them that certain classified and unclassified documents were about to be uploaded on the internet without redaction. He was concerned that certain people's lives would be at risk. Of course, this action proved the prosecution in the Assange extradition hearings in London as completely wrong, as Wikileaks spent months redacting the cables before releasing them. The State and Hillary Clinton did not heed the warnings, and a bad actor published the cables without redaction.

One of my favorite film directors, Oliver Stone, posted a tweet appealing to Trump to pardon Julian Assange. The tweet's framing was interesting: telling the president that by pardoning Assange, it would certainly ruffle the feathers of the permanent government and the democratic establishment. Over Trump's term as president, the permanent government went after Trump, claiming he colluded with Russia and essentially calling him a Manchurian Candidate. This non-stop McCarthyism went on for over 3 years without substantial evidence until the Mueller Report's release. After the Mueller report, the frenzy died down. Still, it was so entrenched in the national psyche that some were continuing to label people “Russian assets” who opposed their agenda or political views. Now that Biden has won the election, not surprisingly, Russia is, for the most part, irrelevant. That said, I believe Oliver Stone is onto something.

Those who really understand Trump's basic nature, realize that 1) he's a sore loser and 2) he likes to exact revenge upon his enemies. There is no better way to stick it to the democratic establishment and the permanent government than pardoning Julian Assange.

We need to understand, however, that a pardon is an admittance of guilt for the crimes you have been accused of or committed. Assange has not committed any crime; his only action was publishing and journalism, revealing government war crimes and corruption.

At this point, all those supporting Assange would like to see the charges and allegations dropped. That said, a Trump pardon is the next best thing and the right thing to do.