WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not be cooperating with a far-reaching document request from Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee, that was sent as part of their effort to investigate President Donald Trump.
The committee requested documents from 81 individuals and entities in their efforts to investigate corruption, obstruction of justice, and ethics violations in the Trump campaign.
One of Assange’s lawyers, Barry Pollack, told Politico that the House Judiciary Committee request violates the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment dictates that any inquiry by Congress should not begin by issuing requests to journalists for documents pertaining to its news gathering,” Pollack said.
Assange has been nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize by 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, despite the US government’s increased effort to persecute him.
WikiLeaks is protected under the Bartnicki First Amendment Test, which holds that a publisher cannot be held liable for a disclosure of stolen information if the disclosure deals with “a matter of public concern” and provided that the speaker was not “involved” in the theft. Given that WikiLeaks does not steal or hack the documents that they publish, this precedent should apply to Assange. There is no doubt that their publications have been newsworthy and of public concern.
Currently, Chelsea Manning is in prison for refusing to testify in a secret grand jury against the publisher.
Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012. He was soon granted political asylum. The UK has long refused to acknowledge the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), which found that Assange is being arbitrarily and unlawfully detained and must be immediately released without the threat of arrest and compensated.
