Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has reached a tentative deal to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents from 2009 to 2011, according to court filings.
This plea deal likely concludes a long-running legal saga that highlighted the tension between national security and press freedom.
Assange is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday in the Northern Mariana Islands, according to a letter filed by the Justice Department in the remote U.S. jurisdiction Monday evening.
The letter indicates that Assange will be sentenced to the 62 months he has already spent behind bars in a London jail and will return to his home country of Australia.
The charges against the WikiLeaks founder in the US stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history, among which was evidence that US Army helicopter gunships slaughtered to Reuters journalists in Baghdad and also fired upon a van in which children were passengers when the driver rendered assistance.
In February 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Assange was arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom, as a result of illegal action against him by both governments.
“The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that the various forms of deprivation of liberty to which Julian Assange has been subjected constitute a form of arbitrary detention,” said Seong-Phil Hong, who currently heads the expert panel. “The Working Group maintains that the arbitrary detention of Mr. Assange should be brought to an end, that his physical integrity and freedom of movement be respected, and that he should be entitled to an enforceable right to compensation.”
A criminal information filed alongside the letter states that Assange “knowingly and unlawfully conspired” with Chelsea Manning to “receive and obtain documents … connected with the national defense” and to “communicate” that information to “persons not entitled to receive” it.
Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other laws at a court-martial in 2013.
Assange, whose snow-white hair became globally recognizable, is a polarizing figure. Supporters view him as a courageous journalist exposing government misdeeds, while dictators see him as a potential danger because his leaks might harm tyrannical rule.
He burst into the American public consciousness in the 2010s, when WikiLeaks began publishing a series of significant disclosures. These included hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. military documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and numerous confidential diplomatic cables that included candid and sometimes unflattering assessments by U.S. diplomats of counterparts overseas.
In 2016, WikiLeaks published emails that Russian government hackers had stolen from Democratic Party servers, which U.S. authorities assessed were leaked by Moscow to disrupt the presidential election. Assange was not charged in connection with those documents.
Assange had evaded authorities for years by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He arrived in 2012 to escape Swedish authorities, who were investigating him for sexual assault. Although that case was ultimately dropped, U.S. officials indicted Assange under seal for computer hacking in 2018. Ecuador expelled Assange from the embassy the following year, accusing him of violating the terms of his asylum, and he was immediately arrested by British authorities on the U.S. charge.
Ecuador cited Assange’s “discourteous and aggressive behavior” and violations of asylum terms as reasons for rescinding asylum. Extradition efforts soon followed, but Assange’s attorneys argued that he would commit suicide if ordered to face trial in the United States.
Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department expanded the case against Assange to include 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. These charges raised concerns among press freedom advocates, who saw little distinction between WikiLeaks publishing leaked documents and traditional media reporting on national security matters that often rely on leaks. It was the first time the U.S. government sought to prosecute someone for publishing government secrets, raising significant First Amendment issues.
WikiLeaks’ disclosures, such as the Afghan War Logs, were published with minimal vetting to obscure the names of Afghan civilians who had provided information to the U.S. military, dismaying human rights groups. Despite Assange’s unconventional methods, press advocates viewed the charges as a threat to press freedom, potentially opening the door to prosecuting American journalists for reporting on national defense and intelligence activities.
“A plea deal would avert the worst-case scenario for press freedom,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “But Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day. This deal will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in this country but around the world.”
The United States promised Assange he would not face any charges that could trigger the death penalty, that he would not be automatically put in solitary confinement, and that he would receive mental health treatment. However, Assange’s attorneys argued that these promises were insufficient to prevent him from self-harm if in U.S. custody.
Assange’s health deteriorated during his stay in London’s Belmarsh Prison. His brother, Gabriel Shipton, stated in February that Assange was “going through [an] immense amount of suffering” and that his health was in a very delicate position.
The Justice Department has been discussing ways Assange could be held accountable without extradition to the United States. One possibility was that Assange would plead guilty remotely to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information, while WikiLeaks would plead guilty to one of the felony espionage charges.
The plea deal, if finalized, represents a compromise that balances national security interests with press freedom concerns, potentially setting a precedent for future cases involving the publication of classified information.