0:02

From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning

0:04

Herald and The Age, this is

0:06

the morning edition. I'm Samantha

0:08

Sellenger Morris. It's Wednesday, June

0:10

26th. When

0:14

the news broke yesterday morning that

0:16

Julian Assange had been set free from

0:18

a London prison, the buzz spread immediately

0:21

through Parliament House in Canberra. After

0:23

spending more than a decade in prison or in hiding,

0:25

what exactly had Assange agreed to plead

0:28

guilty to? And will he finally come

0:30

home to Australia today? Foreign

0:32

Affairs and national security correspondent

0:34

Matthew Not on how the case that changed

0:36

politics and journalism forever finally

0:39

came to an end, and what the ripple effect

0:41

might be on both domestic and American

0:44

politics. So

0:47

Matt, you're in Canberra at the moment and you were

0:49

in the capital when this monumental and

0:51

probably unexpected news came through.

0:53

So I'm dying to ask you, what was the mood

0:55

like in Parliament House when this

0:57

news got around? And what have we

0:59

learned about how it has actually come to pass

1:02

that Julian Assange has been released?

1:04

Yes. There are certain moments in

1:06

Parliament House when you're aware that

1:08

everyone in the building is focused on

1:10

one story, one news development, and

1:13

it just spreads instantly throughout

1:15

the building. And this is one of those

1:18

days because this is a saga that

1:20

people have followed for so long. There's

1:22

been so many twists and turns, so

1:25

many ups and downs. People have had hope.

1:27

Then things seem to backtrack

1:30

in terms of Julian Assange's release.

1:34

The morning. We start with breaking news. Australian

1:36

and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is

1:38

a free man after boarding a plane

1:40

out of the UK.

1:41

Government has entered into a plea deal with

1:43

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

1:45

To his alleged role in one of the largest

1:47

breaches of classified material in

1:50

American history.

1:51

Julian Assange has spent more than a decade resisting

1:53

deportation and facing the espionage

1:55

charges. Our legal correspondent.

1:58

Has been telling us. And then really

2:00

out of nowhere, this news did

2:02

come on Tuesday morning

2:05

that Julian Assange has agreed

2:07

to a plea deal with the United

2:09

States government. And not just that, but

2:11

when we heard about the news, he was already on his way

2:13

out of the United Kingdom, where

2:16

he has been locked up and on his

2:18

way to a place few of us

2:20

had ever heard of, are Saipan

2:22

in the Northern Mariana Islands,

2:24

are to appear there

2:27

and reach this deal, and

2:29

potentially very soon arriving back

2:31

in Australia. So it's a big, dramatic,

2:34

fast moving development.

2:40

And so tell us, exactly what has he

2:42

actually pleaded guilty to?

2:44

This has been an ongoing issue. The

2:46

idea of a plea deal has been around

2:49

for well over a year, that this

2:51

was the best option for Assange

2:53

to be released, but there were always

2:56

some complications with that. One

2:58

was that you have to plead

3:00

guilty, and that Assange

3:03

wasn't very keen to say that

3:05

he'd done something wrong here. You know, he

3:07

says he was acting essentially

3:09

as a publisher operating in

3:11

the public interest, releasing information

3:14

that the public needed to read. The second

3:16

part was that under

3:18

a plea deal, he would have to appear

3:21

on US soil, and he really

3:23

did not want to do that to

3:26

to go to America at all. So these

3:28

were always the two things that people working

3:30

in this area were saying, how are they going to get around

3:33

this? And this is what we've seen the

3:35

detail of. So of the original 18

3:37

charges, Assange, it seems, is

3:39

pleading guilty to one of those charges,

3:41

and that is about conspiring to unlawfully

3:44

obtain and disseminate classified

3:46

national defence information that

3:49

was relating to these very famous

3:51

war logs relating to

3:53

the Afghanistan and Iraq wars

3:56

that is more serious than

3:59

what had been speculated about before. There

4:01

was speculation that he might plead to a

4:03

misdemeanor charge. This is

4:05

a felony charge, so it is a

4:07

serious matter to plead guilty

4:10

to, uh, the

4:12

US authorities has have said this would be

4:14

five years in jail. And

4:16

they're subtracting what he has served

4:19

in the UK. And it's coming out

4:21

about even in that way.

4:23

And he's appearing in the Northern Mariana

4:25

Islands because that is technically US

4:27

soil. It's called a US Commonwealth. This

4:30

is very close to the military base

4:32

of Guam, and

4:34

we're expecting a speedy hearing

4:36

there before he comes back to Australia.

4:39

And are we to take this as a bit

4:41

of a win for Julian Assange, not just him

4:43

being released, but the fact that he hasn't been

4:45

made to go to the United States

4:47

proper because his fear, of course,

4:49

was that he might actually face the death penalty

4:51

if he ever landed in America. I believe he

4:53

was facing up to 175 years in

4:55

prison there. And the last time I spoke to

4:58

our colleague David Crow, about this, he was fighting

5:00

extradition to the United States, from where

5:02

he was in a prison in London. So is

5:04

this a big win for him that he has not had

5:06

to go to United States proper?

5:08

Yes. I think it's a win for Julian

5:10

Assange. The US authorities acknowledge

5:13

this in their own filings that he did

5:15

not want to go to America. So

5:17

they're allowing him to do this

5:19

here, essentially at a place that's more

5:21

convenient for him.

5:23

That shows some of the political

5:25

machinations that have gone on

5:28

behind the scenes here. The

5:30

other thing is that the US election is coming

5:32

up very soon in November. Uh,

5:34

by January, Donald Trump

5:36

could be back in the white House. Now,

5:38

the history of Donald Trump and Wikileaks is very interesting

5:41

in itself, but it was the Trump administration

5:43

that brought these charges. Initially,

5:46

the Biden administration had made clear

5:48

it was open to some kind of deal here.

5:50

So I think getting it done now

5:53

before the US election really took off

5:55

is a win for Assange as well.

5:56

And can you remind us just briefly about

5:58

the original charges that are at the very

6:01

heart of why Julian Assange has spent

6:03

more than a decade in prison or in

6:05

hiding?

6:05

Yes, there's such a long running

6:08

process behind here.

6:10

Also bleeding into the charges

6:12

he faced originally in Sweden,

6:14

which were a sexual assault

6:17

charges that then kind of overlapped

6:19

with these charges, which were about

6:21

his journalistic work.

6:24

It was in the air since

6:26

the day Wikileaks published many

6:28

of these diplomatic logs

6:30

videos. This was all the information

6:32

that was leaked by Chelsea

6:34

manning when she was

6:37

a US Army officer,

6:39

and the Obama

6:41

administration looked at it pretty closely.

6:44

They were furious about this

6:46

top secret information being

6:48

released. They decided not to

6:50

pursue Julian Assange in particular,

6:53

because he was publishing

6:55

this information. And from the very outset that

6:57

were there were concerns about the implications

7:00

for journalism, are the precedent that

7:02

this would set if, say, a publication

7:04

like The New York Times receives classified

7:07

information a journalist from,

7:09

they're going to be locked up for publishing this.

7:11

So the Trump administration

7:14

then came in and eventually, in 2018,

7:17

charged Assange and then made

7:19

them much more serious the following year, in

7:21

2019, added on a

7:23

lot of charges, the total sentence

7:25

he would have faced theoretically in prison

7:27

would have been 175 years.

7:29

The Espionage Act is incredibly serious,

7:32

essentially, about spying, usually

7:34

not about journalists or publishers

7:36

publishing information.

7:39

So it was an. Extraordinary case.

7:41

Long running issues going

7:43

back and forth with the UK criminal

7:46

justice system about whether Assange would

7:48

be extradited or not.

7:51

And now it looks like that saga is coming

7:53

to an end.

7:53

And just to be clear, I guess, about how monumental

7:56

this original Wikileaks publication

7:58

was, it was back in 2010.

8:00

It was a hundreds of thousands of classified

8:02

US military documents, as I believe you said.

8:05

And it was actually the largest security

8:07

breach of its kind in US military history,

8:09

wasn't it?

8:10

Yes, it was huge. If you remember at

8:12

the time, it was an incredible

8:14

news story. The US State

8:16

Department went into meltdown.

8:18

Hillary Clinton was very unhappy

8:21

about it, about this information

8:23

being released. Assange and his supporters

8:25

have always said that this is providing

8:27

more transparency about a very secretive

8:30

part of US national

8:32

security, and about the way these

8:34

two wars were actually

8:36

conducted.

8:38

Are you able to go to those dead bastards? Come

8:40

on, let us shoot.

8:41

Come on. Including

8:43

some behavior by

8:46

US troops that wasn't

8:48

really known about, and that the public deserved

8:50

to know.

8:51

Was their fault for bringing their kids to a battle. That's

8:53

right. Nice. We'll

8:59

be right back.

9:04

Amat. I wanted to turn to

9:06

the diplomacy, I guess that has

9:08

gone into this release, because this

9:10

plea deal, of course, comes after extensive lobbying

9:13

from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

9:15

and politicians from across the political spectrum

9:17

here. So on what grounds have

9:19

various politicians here argued that

9:21

Assange should be released? Yes.

9:23

There really was a difference in

9:25

approach. When the Albanese government

9:27

came to power, the Morrison government

9:31

and the previous coalition government had

9:33

essentially said that this is a matter

9:35

for the US justice system. We respect

9:38

its independence. We're not going to interfere.

9:40

We want to ensure that Mr. Assange

9:42

has is treated well in the

9:44

prison in the UK and whatnot. From his

9:47

time in opposition, Anthony Albanese

9:49

was saying that enough is enough

9:51

with this case. There were the three

9:53

words that he kept coming back to enough is enough.

9:56

He said this again when he became prime minister,

9:58

and he made clear that he

10:00

raised this in his private

10:03

encounters with President Biden.

10:06

The approach has changed over

10:08

time. At first, with

10:10

Prime Minister Albanese, there was a view not to

10:12

engage in megaphone diplomacy,

10:14

to keep it pretty private,

10:16

pretty diplomatic. When

10:19

it seemed that wasn't working so well,

10:22

Prime Minister Albanese became more public.

10:24

It was some of his advocacy and saying, we really

10:27

want this to be resolved

10:29

and for Assange to be let free. It's an important

10:31

issue for Australia in the context

10:34

of the Us-australia alliance.

10:37

The case has dragged on for too long.

10:40

There is nothing to be gained by his

10:42

continued incarceration, and we want

10:44

him brought home to Australia.

10:46

And this is a fascinating issue

10:48

because politicians from right

10:50

across the political spectrum have become

10:52

active in it. There was a trip

10:54

to Washington last year by

10:56

a cross-party delegation

10:58

of MPs ranging from

11:00

Monique Ryan, the independent

11:02

Greens senator David Shoebridge,

11:05

nationals MP

11:07

Barnaby Joyce. Alex Antic,

11:10

who is at the far right of the Liberal Party,

11:12

has been active on this as well, all

11:14

arguing for Assange's release and meeting

11:16

with their counterparts

11:19

in the United States. Kevin

11:21

Rudd, the US ambassador,

11:24

was very strong on this issue

11:26

before he was appointed and has been very

11:28

energetically pursuing the issue

11:30

there. So it's really been a

11:32

full court diplomatic press from

11:35

Australia to try and get

11:37

something done here, and they

11:39

have achieved an outcome.

11:40

And I'm just wondering how Anthony

11:42

Albanese might use this

11:45

to his advantage, this release of Julian Assange,

11:47

because it was only four months ago that the

11:49

opposition actually opposed a motion brought to

11:51

parliament by independent MP Andrew Wilkie

11:53

calling to bring Assange home.

11:56

So what do you think of the idea that

11:58

Albanese, you know, might use this when he's

12:00

campaigning for a second prime ministerial term

12:02

here as proof of his ability

12:04

to work with the US government? Like, hey, look, look

12:06

how I was able to get this unlikely outcome.

12:09

Yes, in the end, the opposition didn't

12:11

vote for the parliamentary motion calling

12:13

for the case against Assange to be

12:15

brought to an end. But it is important to

12:17

note that opposition leader Peter Dutton,

12:19

for some time, has said

12:22

that he supports Julian

12:24

Assange being brought home, that

12:26

he essentially backs the government on this.

12:28

There was some criticism

12:30

of the United States in

12:32

that parliamentary motion that the opposition

12:35

said they just couldn't support, so

12:37

it was more of a communication issue

12:39

rather than a substantial issue

12:41

there. But yes, as

12:43

we speak right now, at the time of recording

12:46

Tuesday afternoon, there's a lot of wariness

12:48

because Assange has not cut

12:51

this deal officially, and people are still

12:53

wary of making sure that

12:55

it is carried through.

12:57

But I think Anthony Albanese

12:59

will point this to

13:01

a part of the government's relatively

13:04

low key, persistent

13:07

efforts at diplomacy. They

13:09

would describe them as very adult, very

13:11

mature. It's not just about going out and

13:13

making noise, it's about getting things done

13:15

and achieving results. We saw that

13:17

with Cheng Lei, the Chinese

13:20

Australian journalist, last October.

13:22

The government played an important role

13:24

in managing to secure her release. She

13:26

is now home and free and

13:28

working as a journalist again. It's the

13:30

same story with Julian

13:32

Assange. I think Albanese will point to this

13:35

as why his government

13:37

has been successful in

13:39

a diplomatic sense, in the realm of foreign policy.

13:41

This will be a big achievement for him and

13:43

Matt.

13:44

Just to wrap up, how might this decision

13:46

play into the upcoming American

13:48

election? Because, of course, as you mentioned

13:50

before, Julian Assange was originally indicted

13:52

under former President Donald Trump's administration,

13:55

and now it's the Joe Biden administration,

13:57

which is the one to set Assange free.

14:00

Hmm.

14:00

Yeah. In recent times, Trump

14:02

himself had actually. Said that he

14:04

was open to pardoning

14:07

Assange. I found even in my time

14:09

living in America, that it

14:11

wasn't as big an issue there. It wasn't

14:13

a huge news story there.

14:15

It's only in recent times that

14:17

it's become clear that, oh, this is a big deal

14:19

for Australia. Press

14:22

organisations over there have

14:24

rallied behind Julian Assange

14:26

and said there are important issues of press freedom

14:28

at stake here. There were

14:30

supporters of Assange on both the Republican

14:33

and the Democratic side, so

14:35

I think there won't be that

14:38

much outrage about what has

14:40

been done, because I think there was

14:42

a growing consensus across the divide

14:44

that it was time for this matter to end.

14:48

Well, it's incredible that it has

14:50

actually come to an end. So thank

14:52

you so much, Matt, for your time.

14:54

No worries at all.

15:01

Today's episode of The Morning Edition

15:03

was produced by Julia Carcasole,

15:05

with technical assistance by Debbie Harrington.

15:07

Our head of audio is Tom McKendrick.

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15:34

Links are in the show. Notes. I'm

15:36

Samantha Selinger. Morris. This is

15:38

the morning edition. Thanks for listening.