Julian Assange

Whenever people discuss the 2016 election and factors that played in its results, one is bound to hear the names of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.  Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks, a nonprofit organization dedicated to leaking information given out by whistleblowers. WikiLeaks has been the source of many controversial documents released over the last couple of years. During Obama’s administration, WikiLeaks released documents such as the U.S. State Department diplomatic “cables”, which were secret cables sent to the U.S. State Department, and in 2011, the 779 secret files which contained much information relating to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. More recently, WikiLeaks released emails and information from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. Not only did the emails released provide a controversy that greatly affected the Clinton campaign, but the information from Podesta revealed the possibility of impropriety against Bernie Sanders. Obviously, these leaks lowered trust in these candidates, implying that they were cheating their way through the election.

WikiLeaks has been accused of being in collusion with the Russian government by releasing documents given to them that would influence the 2016 election. However, this accusation remains unfounded, since incriminating evidence has yet to be found. However, the focus of recent news is not so much on WikiLeaks itself, but on its silver-haired founder, Julian Assange. Assange was born in Queensland, Australia in 1971 and founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He was wanted by the Swedish government for sexual assault allegations and by the British for failing to appear in court. For this reason, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on July 19, 2012. He has been there for 5 years, but now, he claims that “The war, the proper war, is just commencing,”. Why would he claim this? Well, on May 19, 2017, the Swedish government declared that it would drop its pursuit of sexual assault charges against Julian Assange. While this lifts a great weight off of his shoulders, Assange still cannot leave the Embassy. He is still wanted in Britain, but his lawyers are trying to clear that up. However, the fact that Sweden has decided to drop pursuit of charges has nothing to do with lack of evidence incriminating Assange. According to Marianne Ny, the chief prosecutor in Sweden, “I can conclude, based on the evidence, that probable cause for this crime still exists,”. In fact, Assange’s case can be re-opened if he returns to Sweden by 2020, which is the time limit placed on the accusations. According to Assange’s lawyer, “He’s a free man,”, but given the true subtleties of Assange’s situation, that will remain to be seen.