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ASSANGE EXTRADITION: UK Minister Who Approved Trump's Request to Extradite Assange Spoke at Secretive US Conferences with People Calling for Him to be 'Neutralized'
Britain's former home secretary attended "starlight chats" and "after-dinner cocktails" in off-the-record conferences involving high-level U.S. military and intelligence figures, report Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard.
Sajid Javid, who was Britain's home secretary from April 2018 to July 2019, attended "starlight chats" and "after-dinner cocktails" in a series of off-the-record conferences involving high-level U.S. military and intelligence figures at a five-star island resort off the coast of Georgia. Many of those attending have been exposed in WikiLeaks publications and have demanded the organization be shut down.
Javid signed the Trump administration's extradition request for Assange in June 2019. He was Britain's chancellor until his recent resignation. One of the criteria under which a British home secretary can block extradition to the U.S. is if "the person could face the death penalty."
The month before being appointed home secretary in April 2018, Javid visited Georgia for the "world forum" of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - an influential neoconservative U.S. organization with close ties to the U.S. intelligence community. The AEI has run a campaign against WikiLeaks and Assange since 2010.
It can now be revealed [this article was first published on Feb. 22, 2020] that Javid spoke at the 2018 meeting, as did Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the AEI who has called for Assange to be "garroted." In a column published on the AEI website, Goldberg wrote: "WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicised breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb. So again, I ask: Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It's a serious question."
Bill Kristol, a close associate of the AEI who also spoke in Georgia with Javid, has written a column titled "Whack WikiLeaks" in which he asked: "Why can't we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can't we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible?" Kristol's article was promoted on social media by another AEI fellow who spoke in Georgia with Javid.
Both Goldberg and Kristol spoke at all four of the AEI's world fora that Javid attended from 2014 to 2018.
Assange and the AEI
The AEI has been running a campaign against WikiLeaks-and Assange specifically - throughout the U.S. media since 2010. The organization's website lists 20 articles or events tagged with "Julian Assange" and 43 articles tagged with "WikiLeaks," all of which are negative.
AEI resident fellow Marc A. Thiessen has written numerous articles demonizing Assange and the work of WikiLeaks. One article titled, "WikiLeaks must be stopped," which is published on the AEI website, concludes, "If left unmolested, Assange will become even bolder and inspire others to imitate his example." Another article in May 2019, also on the AEI website, is titled, "Assange is a spy, not a journalist. He deserves prison." Thiessen attended all the same annual AEI fora as Javid from 2014-18.
In 2012, the AEI sponsored an event in Washington, D.C., called "Assange's asylum in Correa's Ecuador: Last refuge for scoundrels?" hosted by the AEI's visiting fellow Roger F. Noriega, another figure critical of Assange. The question to be answered was listed as, "Can Ecuador's president successfully whitewash his image by advancing Assange's anti-American crusade?"
Sajid Javid and the American Enterprise Institute did not respond to requests for comment.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/21/assange-extradition-uk-minister-who-approved-trumps-request-to-extradite-assange-spoke-at-secretive-us-conferences-with-people-calling-for-him-to-be-neutralized/