OAN’s Sophia Flores
4:30 PM – Wednesday, March 20, 2024
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly considering offering controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a plea deal.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the DOJ may allow Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information.
He has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges of espionage over the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.
Prosecutors allege that Assange, along with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, hacked into the Pentagon and released secret information regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In turn, his alleged actions “put the lives of countless military personal and U.S. allies at risk,” prosecutors added.
Assange’s supporters appear to outweigh his critics, with many world leaders and U.S. lawmakers calling for his release while citing freedom of the press. They maintain that Assange simply acted as a journalist by releasing the private information and that it is protected under press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
A British court is in the process of deciding whether or not Assange will be extradited to the United States to face trial.
If found guilty on spying charges after his extraction to the U.S., Assange faces up to 175 years behind bars. So far, the Wikileaks founder has served five years at Belmarsh Prison in the U.K.
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