The Plot to Hack America

Even those critical of Assange and WikiLeaks, however, have acknowledged the value of some of the site’s revelations. Still, critics worry about the ideological motives behind the operation. German Journalist Jochen Bittner wrote in a February 2016 opinion piece in The New York Times that the “idea behind WikiLeaks is simple, and ingenious.” He continued: Whistleblowers submitted material that proved corruption of the former Kenyan president, tax-avoidance strategies employed by big European banks, and indiscriminate killings of civilians by an American attack helicopter in Iraq. News outlets, including The Guardian, Der Spiegel and The New York Times, helped Mr. Assange spread the scoops. Yet, even back then, observers and media partners felt that Mr. Assange had more in mind than transparency, that there was an ideology behind his idea. Over time, that ideology has become increasingly apparent, through his regular public statements and his stint as a host for a Russian state-controlled TV network.²³

In August 2010, just months after the first Manning documents were published, two women accused Assange of rape and sexual assault in Sweden. Assange denies the allegations and he has not been charged. Assange was arrested in London in December and a British court ruled he should be extradited to Sweden, a decision he appealed to the U.K. Supreme Court, which upheld the extradition decision in May 2012. To prevent extradition to Sweden after the sexual assault accusations, Assange went to Ecuador’s embassy in London and appealed for political asylum, a request Ecuador granted in August of 2012. However, since leaving the building would entail his leaving Ecuador’s diplomatic immunity he is effectively residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on house arrest.²⁴ In August 2016, Sweden and Ecuador reached an agreement to interview Assange at the embassy, although the statute of limitations expired on all crimes but the rape allegation.²⁵

Ricardo Patiño, Ecuador’s foreign minister, cited fear of political prosecution as a reason for granting his asylum request. “There are serious indications of retaliation from the country or countries that produced the information published by Mr. Assange; retaliation that could endanger his safety, integrity and even his life,” Patiño said at a news conference.²⁶ Patiño further suggested Assange would not receive a fair trial if extradited to the U.S., adding that it was “not at all improbable he could be subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and sentenced to life imprisonment or even capital punishment.”²⁷

Russia’s connections to Assange and WikiLeaks have been the subject of discussions and internet conspiracy theories, but tangible evidence of a real connection has started to accrue only recently.²⁸ The misgivings about Assange developing an agenda, coinciding with his embassy imprisonment, were drawn in much starker relief when his relationship with the Russians grew closer.

In the Soviet era, all Russian media was considered tainted and ideologically controlled from a central communications authority. Tass, Pravda (Truth!) and the Izvestia distribution networks acted as mouthpieces for the Soviet politburo. Today Putin’s Russia has diversified that portfolio and added BBC-style media of Russia Today to introduce negative propaganda by adopting sloppy Fox News–style reporting (“Some people say…”) to air conspiracy theories or further their anti-US propaganda. For example, “Islamic State operative confesses to receiving funding through US: report.” They then link to and “investigate” unscrupulous or deliberately false news stories from “blogs” or unnamed sources.

Julia Ioffe, a journalist who has written extensively about Putin and Russia, wrote in The Columbia Journalism Review that the RT network began in 2005 “as a soft-power tool to improve Russia’s image abroad, to counter the anti-Russian bias the Kremlin saw in the Western media.”²⁹ However, Ioffe wrote, today the network has “become better known as an extension of former President Vladimir Putin’s confrontational foreign policy.”³⁰

Powerful Russian financial backing has given RT the legitimacy of many international news agencies. They use it to pay American contrarians to appear on their RT America channel and offer an air of debate, frequently on Kremlin-directed themes. Not surprisingly, Assange hosted his own twelve-episode television show called The World Tomorrow, or simply, The Julian Assange Show. It ran from April to June 2012, airing from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.