17 more counts for Assange
Throwing the book at him.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/julian-assange-wikileaks-new-charges-us
The new charges include allegations that he violated the law by publishing what John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, described to reporters on Thursday as a “narrow subset” of documents that identified the names of individuals who were working with the US government, including sources in Afghanistan and Iraq. Demers rebuffed arguments raised since Assange’s arrest that the WikiLeaks founder was being targeted for work as a journalist — Demers said this information put the sources at risk, and that no “responsible” journalist would publish it.
“The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it. It has not and never has been the department’s policy to target them for reporting. But Julian Assange is no journalist,” Demers said.
Assange is not facing any charges to date related to information that WikiLeaks published in 2016 that was stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The Justice Department is pursuing criminal charges against Russian national accused of carrying out those hacks and turning over the information to WikiLeaks.
Is this a poison pill to prevent extradition?
The UK has rules about extraditing to countries where the accused could face the death penalty.