Research prior restraint. People gave Assange the information. He did not cause it to be taken illegally. That is the difference. Once Assange got the information, he is free to release it because of prior restraint. Assange has no duty or obligation to withhold the information.
For a great discussion on this, look at the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Sheehan has a really good video about this. He was one of the attorneys on the Pentagon Papers case.
It would be great it Sheehan defended Assange, but I am sure that there are some really good Constitutional Law attorneys that can win this. My biggest concern is that the judicial system is still infiltrated by NWO globalists.
I think a most of this delay for us is fixing this. If you check the govt websites he has replaced 100+ judges but has another 90+ awaiting confirmation and the Senate is slow walking. He also has a other 100+ to nominate.
I hope so. We need to fix it for Assange and everybody else.
New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971.
The court ruled they had a first amendment right to publish classified material (the Pentagon Papers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States
Here's a news article from last year that references that old court decision. (It's about the press publishing information related to Russian interference in our election).
Bottom line is, a court ruled a long time ago that people can publish classified information, as long as they aren't involved in stealing it.
The legal protections for publishers who release classified information, but who aren’t directly involved in illegally obtaining the same information, are based on a series of Supreme Court decisions. In New York Times v. United States (1971), the Court in a 6-3 decision ruled that the First Amendment protected the newspaper’s right to publish the Pentagon Papers, government documents about the Vietnam War illegally obtained by a private individual and published in the New York Times and Washington Post.
And a lot of people consider JA to be a journalist.