Possibility of pardon overshadows Assange extradition ruling

[struggle4progress]

By ELLEN MILLIGAN | Bloomberg | Published: December 31, 2020

A U.K. judge will rule Monday on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges after weeks of talk about a possible pardon from President Donald Trump.

The decision from a London judge will come after President Donald Trump, whose administration brought the charges, issued a plethora of pardons to political allies. And lawyers say the odds of clemency from Trump are better than a judge buying Assange's arguments that his human rights will be trampled on in America.

"It's very rare for the magistrates to refuse extradition requests from the U.S.," said Anthony Hanratty, a lawyer at BDB Pitmans in London, who specializes in extradition cases. "There's a quite strong presumption that the U.S. will comply with obligations in relation to human rights and legal process" ...

https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/possibility-of-trump-pardon-overshadows-pending-assange-extradition-ruling-1.657025

[struggle4progress]

1. Republican lawmakers push Trump to pardon Edward Snowden

By Ebony Bowden
December 25, 2020

... Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), as well as recently pardoned Trump associate Roger Stone, have all asked the president in recent days to drop the criminal charges against the former National Security Agency contractor ...

https://nypost.com/2020/12/25/gop-lawmakers-push-trump-to-pardon-edward-snowden/

[Cha]

2. Bad Luck to Asshole ASSange.

[RainCaster]

3. Can imPOTUS pardon a foreign national?

Who hasn't been tried yet?
Asking for a friend.

[struggle4progress]

5. If he does, there gonna be some whole lotta splainin needs did, cuz

they's the them what brought the charges in the to-begin-with

[RainCaster]

6. Yep, da courts be scratchin their noggins 'bout dis

WTF?

[struggle4progress]

4. Russia's cyberattack no small thing

Dec. 24, 2020 at 8:01 am
Updated Dec. 24, 2020 at 2:19 pm

By Jay Ambrose

This is the 21st century, so far a frightening age, and we’ve just had an act of modernistic war, a hacking attack through which Russia now knows gobs about our government, such as useful details about our nuclear weapons.

It wasn’t just our top government agencies that got data sucked up for others to peruse, but something like 18,000 computer-using organizations worldwide, including energy producers, technology developers and Fortune 500 biggies.

While no one knows for certain it was the Russians who have been doing this for nine months without detection, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says it almost surely was the Russians. President Donald Trump says it wasn’t, certifying that it was. Trump hasn’t seen it all as a terribly big deal despite worries about possibly disastrous results for the military, the economy, and hundreds of other matters, not the least of it being exactly how our government goes about functioning with Russia tuned in to everything ...

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/russias-cyberattack-is-no-small-thing/

[happybird]

7. Awwww, shit!

I got $5 riding on an Assange pardon.
Already trash talking the person with whom I made a wager.
Thanks for posting!

(for the record, I think Assange is a POS, but so is trump, so I think he’ll get a pardon. Birds of a feather and whatnot).