- A lawyer for Julian Assange said that Donald Trump would have offered to pardon him if he cleared Russia in the Democratic Party hacking case.
- The White House flatly denied.
- A Californian elected official did visit Assange and raised the possibility of a pardon in 2017 but there is no evidence that he acted at the direction of Trump.
It is an explosive allegation that the American president very quickly denied. A lawyer for Julian Assange said on Wednesday that Donald Trump would have offered, in 2017, via an intermediary, to pardon the founder of WikiLeaks if he affirmed that Russia had nothing to do with the hacking of the servers of the Democratic Party in 2016 The White House immediately denounced an "absolute lie". We should know more next week: British judge Vanessa Baraitser allowed Assange's team to present this allegation - and possible evidence - at the hearing on his extradition to the United States, which is due hold on next week.
A preliminary hearing was held this Wednesday. According to several British journalists present, the defense of Assange cited a document in which its lawyer Jennifer Robinson affirms that the former Californian elected representative Dana Rohrabacher "went to see Mr. Assange and told him, on the instructions of the president, that he offered him a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange… said that Russia had nothing to do with the leaks of the Democratic party ”.
"I don't remember if I talked about it at the White House"
It all goes back to the summer of 2016. With supporting IP addresses, American intelligence concluded that Moscow had hacked the emails from the Democratic Party (DNC) and then supplied them to WikiLeaks. The organization of Julian Assange then published them drop by drop to sow discord among the Democrats. Assange has always denied having obtained them via Moscow.
Arrives Dana Rohrabacher, former Californian elected official and fervent support of Vladimir Poutine. In mid-2017, he visited Julian Assange, then a refugee at the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Rohrabacher had explained at the time to The Daily Caller at the time that he was seeking to negotiate an agreement with Assange to obtain his collaboration in the investigation into the hacking of the Democratic server. He admitted that he had raised the possibility of a presidential pardon but swore to it: "I don't remember if I talked about it with someone in the White House. "
In September 2017, the Wall Street Journal revisited the case. According to the daily, Rohrabacher had presented his initiative to the chief of staff of the White House. John Kelly is said to have refused to arrange an interview with Donald Trump, fearing that this kitchen is akin to collusion. “The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher. He never told her about it. It is an invention and an absolute lie, "replied the spokeswoman for the White House on Wednesday.
Assange faces 175 years in prison
Detained in Belmarsh, south London since his arrest in April 2019 at the Embassy of Ecuador, Julian Assange is claimed by Washington. He faces up to 175 years in prison in the United States for spying.
The American authorities reproach him for having endangered some of their sources at the time of the publication in 2010 of 250,000 diplomatic cables and around 500,000 confidential documents relating to the activities of the American army in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no lawsuits against him for email leaks from the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump has been cleared of charges of collusion by the Robert Mueller report, but his former adviser Roger Stone faces between seven and nine years in prison for lying about his contacts with WikiLeaks. He will be fixed on his sentence this Thursday.
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