Assange
What really happened?
After all this time, the Federal Government of the United States suddenly decided to put the Assange case to rest — I wonder what that looked like. Perhaps the people in the Executive Branch decided that if they left Assange in prison and Trump took over, it would be a big win for him to start his term with and they wanted to steal that opportunity. Or maybe they thought if he were to die, regardless of the cause of death, everyone would immediately assume that he had been assassinated to prevent Trump from pardoning him, so they wanted to prevent that. My opinion is it was the former.
I can imagine Assange sitting in his cell, struggling to stay sane and alive and trying to have a sliver of hope this nightmare would end someday, when he hears footsteps coming down the corridor and they stop in front of his cell door. He looks up, fear and hope welling up in his chest in equal parts while he sizes up the visitors. They come in and walk over and look down at him for a long moment then: "Julian, we need you to come with us, we have someone from the US who wants to talk to you.”
He gets up and they walk to a room with chairs and a table and two thuggish guys in suits sitting, waiting for him.
“Have a seat, Julian, we have an offer for you to consider.”
“An offer”, Julian relaxed a bit, apparently, they weren’t there to extradite him to the US. One of the thugs opened his briefcase and remove some papers and handed them to Assange. “Julian, the White House thinks you have suffered long enough for your crimes and we would like to give you an opportunity to go home.” Assange looked at the papers as they explained the terms by which he could be released. “You only need to plead guilty of stealing and publishing top secret information from the US government and we will sentence you to time served and then you can go home to Australia. You must also agree not to discuss the details with anyone or say you were innocent and were coerced into signing the confession. If you agree, we can have you out of here within a week.”
Assange was feeling ill. He wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible from this hellhole, but if he signed the confession, it would be giving a win to the very people he despised. “Why do you think I would sign a confession of something I didn’t do?” He asked.
The thugs looked at each other with wry smiles and back to Assange. “Let’s be practical, Julian. I suppose you think Trump will get elected and immediately pardon you; that’s a possibility. However, it’s probably only a 50-50 chance he will return to the White House. Also, he may renege on his statement he will pardon you. On top of that, you aren’t looking too healthy, Julian, you may not live till he gets inaugurated. This prison is a very unhealthy and dangerous place. Your best bet is to go home to your family, put all this behind you and live a normal, simple life.”
Assange interpreted this to mean they would make sure he didn’t live to get pardoned. He didn’t want to die in this hellhole and this was the only chance he would get to leave, he had to do it.