Julian Assange Flips on Trump, Jeopardizing Chances of a Presidential Pardon

OPINION:

In the wake of firings and presidential pardons, people like Michael Flynn, Paul, Manafort, and Roger Stone are crossing their fingers while they wait to see if they get the lucky nod from President Trump. Meanwhile, Julian Assange may have just blown his chances of ever getting any help as he flips on Trump, claiming that President Trump offered him a pardon in exchange for denial of Russia hacking the DNC during the 2016 presidential election. Assange was arrested from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London back in April of last year. See video below for more on that:

According to Sky News, Assange is being held in Belmarsh prison in London ahead of a hearing on the 24th that could lead to his extradition to the U.S. It is also reported that he is in bad health. It’s tough to say if and how that is affected his allegations about President Trump, of if this will send the Democrats into another outraged “impeachment tailspin” or not.

Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, which has been in lots of hot water for all different kinds of things related to hacking and releasing information that the U.S. government wasn’t too thrilled about, and faces 18 possible criminal charges in the U.S., more info on that here. In London, he was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

According to Business Insider, Assange plans to call a witness at his extradition trial who will allege that Assange was offered a presidential pardon if he denied Russia’s involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election. While the Muller-Russia investigation is over, this is a bad look for President Trump, of nothing else. It doesn’t look like Assange as solid evidence other than witnesses at this point.

Al Jazeera reported that a former US Republican congressman, Dana Rohrabacher was the person who made the offer to Assange. The Daily Beast reports that Rohrbacher told Assange he was acting on behalf of President Trump. It’s tough to say how he will prove that. Business Insider also reported:

Lawyers for Julian Assange, the founder of the radical pro-transparency group WikiLeaks, told a London court that he plans to call a witness who will allege that Assange was offered a presidential pardon if he said Russia was not involved in hacking and stealing information from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 US election.

That’s according to James Doleman, a British court and technology reporter.

Doleman said that Assange’s team claims the witness will allege that Assange was offered a pardon if he would “play ball.” …

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who is overseeing the pre-trial hearing, said the allegation should be admissible during Assange’s extradition hearing, which is scheduled to start next week.

The bombshell development came during a pre-trial hearing at the Westminster Magistrate’s court in the UK related to the US government’s extradition case against Assange.

Lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder told the court Assange should not be extradited to the US because the case against him is political in nature rather than criminal.

There doesn’t appear to be any commentary one way or another from President Trump or Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham according to their Twitter feeds as of yet, and we are not aware of any other possible comments. Stay tuned for more possible details on this breaking story.