Julian Assange Warns Trump of “Deep State”?

“IF THEY SUCCEED, CIVIL WAR IS SURELY TO FOLLOW”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 27, 2017) — Over the last several days and in particular, on Sunday morning, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, or someone pretending to be he, has been tweeting on a number of topics involving U.S. politics, the “Deep State,” the Democratic Party and election fraud.

Assange is considered controversial by many because of his publication over the last 11 years of secret documents from governments around the world, including hundreds of thousands of pages of U.S. military documents and diplomatic cables concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In July 2016, Wikileaks published more than 17,000 emails showing that the DNC gave preference to Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the Democrat presidential primary season. Other emails revealed that the DNC coordinated its political message with some mainstream journalists.

On Sunday morning, Assange or a Twitter account using his name noted that a class-action lawsuit was dismissed on Friday which had alleged fraud and corruption within the DNC.

In 2011, Assange was reportedly indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in Alexandria, VA following the release of the military documentation alleging that Assange went beyond publishing and assisted then-Pfc. Bradley Manning to procure the documents.  Currently there is a measure embedded in a bill which arises each year, the Intelligence Authorization Act, proposing that WikiLeaks be labeled a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” a term which CIA Director Mike Pompeo agrees.

On August 23, The Washington Times reported that in an interview with the outlet, Assange asserted that “WikiLeaks like many serious media organizations has confidential sources in the U.S. government. Media organizations develop and protect sources. So do intelligence agencies. But to use this to suggest, as the ‘Pompeo doctrine’ does, that media organizations are ‘non-state intelligence services’ is absurd.”

On August 15, Assange met with Representative Dana Rohrabacher at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Assange has taken refuge for the last five years as a result of his having been wanted by Sweden for questioning in a criminal case. Although maintaining his innocence, Assange wished to avoid the risk of travel to Sweden for fear that he would be handed over to U.S. authorities. The nation of Ecuador then offered him sanctuary at the embassy, from which he has been unable to venture out other than an occasional brief appearance on an upper-floor balcony.

In May, the statute of limitations in the criminal case against Assange expired, and Sweden announced that it would not pursue the matter.

In April, CNN reported that the U.S. Justice Department had reason to believe that Assange played a role in NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s release of documentation in 2013 about the routine data-collection on average Americans reported by The Guardian in June 2013.

Rohrabacher has told several news outlets that Assange is certain that the emails from the DNC server showing coordination with the press and with one another to deny Sanders the Democrat nomination were not provided by the Russian government, as the US intelligence community or portions thereof have said since last year. While The Hill reported that Rohrabacher is considered to have favorable views toward Russia, the Congressman has stated that his interest and general support of Assange stems from his former position as a speechwriter for President Reagan and a journalist.

In the April report cited above, CNN wrote that “US intelligence agencies have also determined that Russian intelligence used WikiLeaks to publish emails aimed at undermining the campaign of Hillary Clinton, as part of a broader operation to meddle in the US 2016 presidential election. Hackers working for Russian intelligence agencies stole thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and officials in the Clinton campaign and used intermediaries to pass along the documents to WikiLeaks, according to a public assessment by US intelligence agencies.”

At approximately the same time, in his efforts to identify and arrest “leakers,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Assange’s arrest is “a priority.”

Donald Trump has both praised and criticized WikiLeaks, depending on the situation.

On August 16, The Hill’s John Solomon reported that “Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.”

In an interview on Friday night, Rohrabacher told FNC’s Tucker Carlson that based on his three-hour meeting with Assange, it appears to him that the transfer of the DNC emails “probably had to be done by an inside download.”

In his interview with Solomon, Rohrabacher said that he would take the information Assange relayed which has not yet been made public directly to Trump.

In his tweets on Sunday afternoon in London, Assange criticized The Clintons, the DNC, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, CNN’s Jim Acosta and others after offering his thoughts on Trump’s pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio.

At 10:48 a.m. EDT, Assange tweeted:

Assange also offered a prediction in the event that the “Deep State” should succeed in removing Trump from office, including Trump as a recipient.  “The #DeepState obstructionists, i.e. @TheDemocrats are on a mission to oust @realDonaldTrump.  If they succeed, #CivilWar is surely to follow,” Assange warned.