US media schtum on Assange’s plight despite 3 years of ‘flamboyant devotion’ to protecting press freedom – Greenwald

Award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald has criticized the US media for its deafening silence on the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange, despite the years it has spent railing against the Trump administration.

Founder of The Intercept and a long-time Assange supporter, Greenwald despaired at the apparent double standards and performative hyperbole of the US media establishment, which has long played up perceived persecution at the hands of US President Donald Trump.  

And yet, journalists across the news media spectrum have been largely unwilling to openly defend the WikiLeaks founder, who faces extradition and judgement in the US courts.

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“The US media spent 3 years flamboyantly proclaiming their devotion to protect press freedoms, yet now ignore what is, by far, the greatest Trump-era threat posed to a free press: the Trump DoJ’s [Department of Justice’s] prosecution and attempted extradition of Julian Assange,” Greenwald tweeted. 

He then singled out the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Executive Editor at The Washington Post Marty Baron as among the few voices in US media daring to raise their heads above the parapet and cry foul over the attempted extradition of Assange from the UK to the US, for exposing gross abuses of power and potential war crimes by the US military in its so-called ‘War on Terror’ in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  

Responding to claims that Assange had “offended Hillary” and that this was why he had been abandoned by the US media establishment, Greenwald responded that it was, in fact, Jeff Sessions and Mike Pompeo that were behind Assange's ongoing persecution, neither of whom could be considered a friend to Hillary Clinton. 

The people behind Assange’s prosecution - Jeff Sessions & Mike Pompeo - hate Hillary. This has nothing to do with that (except they knew liberals would be on their side for that reason). This is about punishing him for 2010 publications exposing US war crimes & other corruption.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 23, 2020

Theorizing as to the apparent indifference to Assange's plight, Greenwald continued suggesting that “they hate Assange because of what he did in 2016 in reporting on Hillary and either don’t care if he is imprisoned or want that to happen.” 

Assange is still being detained at Belmarsh prison in London as he awaits the continuation of his extradition hearing to decide his fate, all while the specter of the coronavirus hangs in the air.

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