The plea deal allows Assange to avoid prison in the US and return to his native Australia.
“That never came up in our conversations,” said David Stilwell, the State Department assistant secretary for the Pacific region during the Trump administration.
Sessions’ focus on national security-related leaks was “probably one of the reasons why the [Assange] case had more traction,” Hickey told CNN.
Hickey said he was not involved in the Assange case when he was a senior official at DOJ’s National Security Division from 2016 to 2023.
Stilwell, the former State Department official under the Trump administration, pushed back on the Assange plea deal.
Persons:
Julian Assange, Assange, Biden, Trump, ”, David Stilwell, Anthony Albanese, Joe Biden, General Merrick Garland, Chelsea Manning, Manning, Barack Obama, Obama, Trump’s, Jeff Sessions, Adam Hickey, ” Hickey, Hickey, “ Assange, who’s, Mayer Brown, Garland, Andrew McCabe, “, it’s, ” McCabe, Stilwell, ” Stilwell, Bradley Moss, would’ve, ” Moss, ” CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Marshall Cohen, Kevin Liptak
Organizations:
CNN, United, Wikileaks, State Department, Australian, Justice Department, FBI, Northern, London’s, US Justice Department, White, Pentagon, Army, Assange ., Department, Obama, Biden, DOJ’s National Security Division, Protect Journalists, Amnesty International, American Civil Liberties Union, Computer, Ecuadorian
Locations:
United States, Washington, London, Stockholm, Quito, Ecuador, Australia, Pacific, Virginia, London’s, Northern Mariana Islands, Iraq, Guantanamo, Washington ,