Pence raises Assange case with Ecuadorean president, White House confirms

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By Andrew Blake - The Washington Times - Friday, June 29, 2018

... “The vice president raised the issue of Mr. Assange. It was a constructive conversation. They agreed to remain in close coordination on potential next steps going forward,” a White House official said in a statement issued following Thursday’s meeting with Mr. Moreno ...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/29/mike-pence-raises-julian-assange-case-with-ecuador/

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1. Not up to US to decide fate of WikiLeaks founder: Ecuador

AFP Published : Jun 30, 2018, 1:10 pm IST

... "Ecuador and the United Kingdom, and of course Mr Assange as a person who is currently staying, on asylum, at our embassy" will decide the next steps, Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told reporters on Friday. "It does not enter, therefore, on an agenda with the United States" ...

http://www.asianage.com/world/americas/300618/not-up-to-us-to-decide-fate-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-ecuador.html

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2. American Lawyer Worked for Putin-Friendly Oligarch and Julian Assange

Dan Friedman
Jun. 22, 2018 11:29 AM

In February, Fox News published a series of text messages from early 2017 between Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and a Washington-based attorney named Adam Waldman, a registered lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Fox News and other conservative media focused on messages in which Waldman had unsuccessfully sought to put Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in touch with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who wrote a series of memos during the 2016 campaign reporting alleged ties between Donald Trump and Russia. The point seemed to be to bolster the claim of Trump defenders that the Trump-Russia scandal was somehow concocted by Democratic partisans.

But these takes overlooked something much more striking. The texts revealed that Waldman, whose clients include the actor Johnny Depp and other celebrities, had initially approached Warner on behalf of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, attempting on a pro-bono basis to help Assange cut a deal with the Justice Department. This outreach came while Waldman was representing Deripaska, an aluminum magnate, on a $40,000-a-month contract and while Deripaska himself was seeking an immunity deal from Congress in exchange for his testimony related to the Russia scandal ...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/06/the-mystery-of-the-american-lawyer-who-worked-for-a-putin-friendly-oligarch-and-julian-assange/