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House members urged in bipartisan letter to join demands for Biden to drop Julian Assange’s case
EXCLUSIVE: Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and James McGovern, D-Mass., are circulating a letter to their colleagues in the House of Representatives calling on President Biden to end the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing a possible extradition to the U.S. for publishing classified U.S. military documents.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter obtained by Fox News Digital, the two congressmen asked fellow House members to join their bipartisan effort to “strongly encourage the Biden administration to withdraw to withdraw the U.S. extradition request currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt all prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible.”
The separate letter the congressmen are referring to, also obtained by Fox News Digital, will be sent to Biden after Massie and McGovern gather signatures from House members. Lawmakers have until Thursday to sign the letter.
The bipartisan congressional effort to free Assange comes a month after a delegation of Australian lawmakers across the political spectrum visited Washington, D.C., and met with members of Congress, U.S. officials and civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, to demand the U.S. drop the charges against Assange, who could be sentenced to up to 175 years in an American maximum-security prison.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Washington this week to meet with Biden and is expected to bring up Assange’s case. Albanese has repeatedly called on the U.S. in recent months to end the prosecution of Assange.
A spokesperson for the Australian government said in a statement to Fox News Digital that it “has made clear its view that Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close.”
The statement continued: “The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States and we will continue to do so. The Australian Government cannot intervene in another country’s legal or court processes just as they are unable to intervene in Australia’s. We continue to convey our expectations that Mr. Assange is entitled to due process, humane and fair treatment, access to proper medical care, and access to his legal team.”
In April, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led a letter to the Justice Department demanding that the charges against Assange be dropped.
“Deep concerns about this case have been repeatedly expressed by international media outlets, human rights and press freedom advocates,” Massie and McGovern wrote in the letter. “Last April, several Members of Congress argued to Attorney General Merrick Garland that ‘[e]very day that the prosecution of Julian Assange continues is another day that our own government needlessly undermines our own moral authority abroad and rolls back the freedom of the press under the First Amendment at home.’ One example: the Assange case has been cited by officials of the People’s Republic of China to claim that the U.S. is ‘hypocritical’ when it comes to support for media freedom.”
Assange would face trial in Alexandria, Virginia, if he exhausts his legal appeals and is extradited to the U.S. He is facing 17 charges for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the Espionage Act and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
The charges followed the 2010 publication of cables U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked to WikiLeaks that detailed alleged war crimes committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp. The materials also exposed instances of the CIA allegedly engaging in torture and rendition.
Wikileaks’ “Collateral Murder” video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists, was also published 13 years ago.
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“Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, faces multiple charges under the Espionage Act due to his role in publishing classified documents about the U.S. State Department, Guantánamo Bay, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the letters to House members and the president read. “He has been detained on remand in London since 2019 and is pending extradition to the U.S., having lost his appeal of the extradition order in the courts of the United Kingdom.”
Massie has previously sponsored bipartisan legislation to reform the Espionage Act and protect whistleblowers and journalists.
Assange has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, for breaching bail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped.
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U.S. prosecutors and critics of Assange have argued WikiLeaks’ publication of classified material put the lives of U.S. allies at risk, but there is no evidence the publishing of the documents put anyone in danger.
In their letter to Biden, Massie and McGovern cite an open letter penned last year by the editors and publishers of U.S. and European news outlets that worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak — The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — calling for the U.S. to end its prosecution against Assange.
“Deep concerns about this case have been repeatedly expressed by international media outlets, human rights and press freedom advocates, and Members of Congress, among others,” the letter to Biden reads. “To cite only a few of the commentaries, in November 2022, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, DER SPEIGEL and El País came together to express their grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials, arguing that ‘publishing is not a crime.'”
The Obama administration decided not to indict Assange in 2013 over WikiLeaks’ publishing the classified cables in 2010 because it would have had to also indict journalists from major news outlets who published the same materials. Former President Obama also commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years in January 2017, and Manning, who had been imprisoned since 2010, was released later that year.
Former President Trump’s Justice Department later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.
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“We believe the Department of Justice acted correctly in 2013, during your vice presidency, when it declined to pursue charges against Mr. Assange for publishing the classified documents because it recognized that the prosecution would set a dangerous precedent,” the letter to Biden reads. “We note that the 1917 Espionage Act was ostensibly intended to punish and imprison government employees and contractors for providing or selling state secrets to enemy governments, not to punish journalists and whistleblowers for attempting to inform the public about serious issues that some U.S. government officials might prefer to keep secret.”
The letter adds: “We are aware that the Assange case has been cited by officials of the People’s Republic of China to claim that the U.S. is ‘hypocritical’ when it comes to its purported support for media freedom. We are also well aware that should the U.S. extradition and prosecution go forward, there is a significant risk that our bilateral relationship with Australia will be badly damaged.”
During the Trump administration, the CIA allegedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as “Vault 7,” which the agency said represented “the largest data loss in CIA history,” Yahoo reported in 2021. The agency was accused of having discussions “at the highest levels” of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London and allegedly acted upon orders from then-CIA director Mike Pompeo to draw up kill “sketches” and “options.”
The agency also had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the report.
WikiLeaks also published internal communications in 2016 between the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign that revealed the DNC’s attempts to boost Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary.
“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government,” the lawmakers said in their letter to Biden. “The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible.”
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Internal emails show Biden officials openly disagreed with admin’s fossil fuel policies
EXCLUSIVE: Several top Biden administration officials openly disagreed with a decision to resume oil and gas leasing, even applauding a Democrat lawmaker’s condemnation of the action, according to internal emails obtained by Fox News Digital.
On Aug. 16, 2021, Interior Department (DOI) Deputy Assistant Secretary Steven Feldgus forwarded a press release – according to the emails obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with Fox News Digital – from Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the then-chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, to Nada Wolff Culver, Laura Daniel-Davis and Amanda Lefton, three fellow senior DOI officials overseeing key energy policy.
“Holding more lease sales under today’s outdated standards is economically wasteful and environmentally destructive, and everyone not sitting in a fossil fuel boardroom knows it,” Grijalva said in a statement included in the release.
The release came moments after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that her agency would proceed with fossil fuel leasing in response to a June 2021 federal court ruling that struck down President Biden’s moratorium on leasing issued during his first week in office. But Grijalva’s release, echoing environmental groups at the time, stated that Haaland had the authority to keep leasing paused while the DOI reviewed its federal oil and gas program.
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“That’s an excellent response,” wrote Culver, the principal deputy director of the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management, in response to Feldgus’ email with Grijalva’s release, blasting Haaland’s actions.
“It sure is,” Daniel-Davis, the DOI’s principal deputy secretary for land and minerals management, added 10 minutes later.
And Lefton – who at the time was the director of the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management but has since left the administration for a green energy consulting firm – simply wrote, “Yes,” joining in on the other officials’ praise of Grijalva’s statement.
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The communications provide insight into how senior Biden administration officials openly disagree with their own agency’s decision to auction public lands and waters to the fossil fuel industry. And they further show how officials continued to oppose traditional energy development even as the DOI both scolded companies for sitting on existing leases and boasted that oil production is increasing.
“These conversations reveal how at odds some officials are with the policies they’re entrusted to develop and implement,” Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, which recently obtained the emails via an information request, told Fox News Digital.
“DOI leadership’s hostility to fossil fuel development seems to be matched only by their efforts to hide that hostility,” Chamberlain continued. “How can the public trust its government with so much inconsistency between the private and public statements of officials like these?”
The three officials – Culver, Daniel-Davis and Lefton – have all previously worked for various left-wing environmental activist groups, including the Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy, which advocate for policies that would significantly curb domestic fossil fuel production. Feldgus, who shared Grijalva’s release, most recently worked as a senior adviser to Grijalva.
The DOI declined to comment, but a spokesperson suggested the communications were consistent with DOI policy.
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As part of Haaland’s announcement in August 2021, she said the DOI would appeal the court ruling that axed Biden’s oil and gas leasing moratorium. The agency continued to litigate the issue until August 2022, when the court permanently killed the policy.
While it argued in favor of the moratorium in court, though, the DOI modified the federal oil and gas leasing program in April 2022 and ultimately held the administration’s first onshore lease sales months later. The agency was subsequently sued by environmental groups for holding the sales in a case that remains ongoing.
The DOI was also sued by energy industry groups for, despite holding the sales in 2022, not regularly holding sales in accordance with the Mineral Leasing Act.
“The Mineral Leasing Act is clear: the Interior Secretary must hold at least quarterly lease sales in every state where there is interest, as reflected by nominations,” Kathleen Sgamma, the president of the Western Energy Alliance, said in a statement in December 2022.
“Oil and natural gas companies have nominated millions of acres in Wyoming and across the West that have yet to be offered for sale. Not only has this administration held only one set of lease sales in its first two years, but has now signaled that there will be no sales until second quarter 2023, a full year later,” she continued. “Once a year does not equal ‘quarterly.'”
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Will Dem Rep. Dean Phillips launch a 2024 primary challenge against Biden this week?
CONCORD, N.H. – The clock is ticking for Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who’s seriously mulling a 2024 Democratic primary challenge against President Biden.
Phillips last week missed a deadline to place his name on the ballot in Nevada, which is holding its presidential primary on Feb. 6 in the Democratic Party’s nominating calendar.
Now the millionaire businessman and co-founder of a gelato company turned three-term House Democrat has until the end of business on Friday to place his name on the ballot in New Hampshire, which for a century’s held the first primary along the road to the White House.
As of late Friday afternoon, neither Phillips nor anyone from his team has reached out to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office to schedule a time to file.
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But a Democratic consulting firm that may be working with Philips obtained a permit to hold an event on Friday in the plaza outside New Hampshire’s Statehouse, Politico reported this past weekend. The report sparked speculation that the congressman would travel to New Hampshire on Friday to announce a primary challenge against the president.
Phillips, citing the 80-year-old president’s age, has repeatedly criticized Biden for “not passing the torch” to the next generation of Democratic leaders and has urged that a serious contender primary challenge the president for the party’s 2024 nomination.
Phillips has let lapse a September deadline he set for himself to decide whether he’d launch a primary challenge against the president.
Nevada is holding its presidential primary on Feb. 6 — although the state GOP is holding a presidential caucus two days later. According to Democratic National Committee, which earlier this year upended years of tradition by revamping their longstanding nominating calendar, the Silver State is supposed to vote second, along with New Hampshire, three days after South Carolina’s Feb. 3 kick off primary.
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It’s all-but-certain that New Hampshire will move up the date of its primary to late January, in accordance with a state law that mandates the Granite State’s primary is held seven days ahead of a similar contest.
Last week Fox News confirmed that Phillips had reached out to some veteran Democratic operatives – both nationally and in New Hampshire. The developments — first reported by Politico and The Messenger — were another sign Phillips is taking steps towards a potential primary challenge against Biden.
Phillips also spoke by phone and spoke with longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley.
“I reminded him the deadline is the 27th for New Hampshire and once he files he can’t get his name off the ballot if he changes his mind,” Buckley told Fox News last week.
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Buckley added that he “told him of course we would be gracious hosts, as is our tradition, but both polling and grassroots interactions in New Hampshire reveal a high level of support for President Biden among the likely voters. It would be a tough challenge for Phillips or anyone. But sure, c’mon on up! “
Fox News reached out to Phillips but he hadn’t responded at the time this article was published.
While the president’s the commanding front-runner for his party’s nomination, polls indicate Biden has faced plenty of concerns from Democrats over his age and physical and mental stamina.
The president is already facing a long-shot primary challenge from best-selling author spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who is making her second straight White House run.
Biden was also facing an uphill primary challenge from environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a scion of arguably the nation’s most famous family political dynasty.
But Kennedy announced at a campaign event in Philadelphia earlier this month that he would now seek the White House as an independent candidate.
The DNC is fully backing Biden, as the president campaigns for a second four-year term in the White House. At its winter meeting in February the DNC unanimously passed a resolution committing its “full and complete support” for the re-election of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Additionally, the DNC has said there will be no primary debates between Biden and any of his challengers.
Williamson, Kennedy and others in the party criticized the DNC and Biden, but there is political precedent for the move. No incumbent president has participated in primary debates in modern times.
With New Hampshire all-but-certain to move up the date of their contest and hold a presidential primary unsanctioned by the DNC, their contest will be found non-compliance and penalized by national Democrats. The president is not expected to file to place his name on the New Hampshire ballot, which would lead to a write-in effort for Biden by Democrats in the Granite State.
Jim Demers, a longtime New Hampshire based political consultant and lobbyist who is helping to lead the write-in effort for Biden, terms a potential primary by Phillips “a ridiculous idea.”
“Democrats in New Hampshire support the president,” Demers emphasized. “So if his mission is to divide Democrats and help Donald Trump, then that’s what he’s doing.”
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Bernie Sanders funnels $75,000 more from campaign coffers to his wife, stepson’s nonprofit
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., transferred $75,000 from his campaign’s coffers to his wife and stepson’s nonprofit during the third quarter, Fox News Digital has found.
The money from the senator’s campaign went to the Sanders Institute on Aug. 8, according to its recently released Federal Election Commission filings. The cash follows the $200,000 that the committee sent to the nonprofit earlier this year.
The institute was established by Sanders’ wife, Jane, and his stepson, David Driscoll, six years ago as a think tank to elevate progressive mouthpieces. However, the group has appeared to perform very little work while paying Driscoll six figures worth of compensation.
“The facts present in this case and the family ties involved certainly raise legitimate concern,” Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, previously told Fox News Digital. “Obviously, a senator is not allowed to use his campaign to simply transfer large sums of money to family members – regardless of the route the dollars take.”
“While on its face, the percentage the nonprofit paid out in salary alone is not necessarily problematic, legally the issue hinges on whether the salaries were paid for bona fide services at fair market value,” Arnold said. “In other words, if the nonprofit and its executive director are truly producing work and actually earning the money, it is not illegal, but it is frowned upon. On the other hand, if nothing or very little is being done to earn the money legitimately, then it is highly likely a serious campaign finance violation has taken place.”
At its launch in 2017, Jane Sanders told the Washington Post that the institute’s purpose would revolve around revitalizing “democracy” and supporting progressive institutions.
“Our feeling is at our point in time, our country is at a crossroads and people are engaged in a political process that can be opaque,” Sanders told the publication.
“A vital democracy requires an informed electorate, civil discourse and bold thinking,” she continued. “So, we put together this team to focus on issues, but not in a partisan way, not in a way that just focuses on the latest crazy thing. It will not be about [former President Donald] Trump; it will be about the issues facing the country.”
The institute ceased its functions in 2019 as Sanders entered the Democrat presidential primary to avoid the “appearance of impropriety.” It has since quietly resumed operations.
The group’s latest publicly available tax forms from 2021 show the nonprofit disbursed nearly 40% of its contributions to salaries while seemingly performing minimal work and having rare identifiable achievements.
In 2021, the institute raised nearly $717,000 and moved $257,000 into wages, including $152,653 in salary and other compensation to Driscoll, its executive director.
That same year, the institute also reported disbursing nearly $160,000 on producing The Timeline Project, which it portrayed as a “policy-focused resource based on Bernie Sanders’ work over four decades” that would be one of the “key pilars (sic) of the website.”
They also disbursed nearly $89,000 for a news site, an equivalent amount for social media and content creation, and around $17,000 for a gathering that never occurred due to the pandemic. The most recent details for any institute gathering on its website are from 2018.
The institute, meanwhile, appears to have little to show for the funds it propelled into its projects. Its website does not appear to contain a “policy-focused resource” defined as its top program expense, and its fellows’ blog posts are primarily cross-posted from other sources. Its YouTube page uploaded just three videos this year. Its profile on X, formerly Twitter, largely pushes outside news and opinion pieces from its fellows.
The institute also reported no grants to other progressive organizations in its 2021 tax records despite saying it intends to support other like-minded institutions.
This election cycle is also not the first time Sanders’ campaign helped bolster his family’s nonprofit. In 2021, his presidential committee transferred $350,000 to the institute.
The cash accounted for nearly half of the $716,000 it raised that year when it put close to 40% of its donations toward salaries and Sanders’ stepson collected slightly more than $150,000 in pay.
Sanders’ campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the money it sent to the institute.
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