Assange"s Twitter Account Mysteriously Deleted, Reappears Hours Later

Update: as of 9:30am ET, the @JulianAssange accounts has returned, although it appears to be a truncated or restored one, which shortly after its reappearance shows just over 1,000 followers.

A "returned" Assange tweeted the following cartoon.

pic.twitter.com/NpZOWzpwhQ

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) December 25, 2017

* * *

Julian Assange"s Twitter account was mysteriously deleted on Christmas Eve, leaving perhaps the most important witness in the Trump-Russia investigation cut off from the rest of the world while he sits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. 

Attempting to access Assange"s Twitter account results in the following message:

This page only appears when an account has been deleted, not suspended - by either Twitter or the account owner. 

It wasn"t clear whether the account was suspended or deleted by Twitter or Assange himself -- or why or for how long. Twitter wasn"t commenting

This tweet by the WikiLeaks Task Force - an official WikiLeaks handle, suggested that people shouldn"t jump to conclusions, as "haters and conspiracy theorists rush to post the usual attention seeking rubbish," before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.  

Julian"s account disappears, so haters and conspiracy theorists rush to post the usual attention seeking rubbish. Ah, Twitter.

Merry Christmas, people.https://t.co/oCBOW2Tc5L pic.twitter.com/GmdXG36Xt3

— WikiLeaks Task Force (@WLTaskForce) December 25, 2017

The official Wikileaks Twitter account was still live but wasn"t mentioning the Assange account.

According to CBS, an account purporting to be an alternative Assange account was claiming Twitter had deleted his official one ahead of a blockbuster story he"s preparing to break. There was no confirmation that Assange was authoring that alternative account -- and that account has now been suspended by Twitter.

Meanwhile, Journalist Charles Johnson - who traveled with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to London to meet with Assange in August, posted the following on Facebook after Assange"s Twitter account went down: 

Moreover, on December 1, WikiLeaks" official account tweeted "Merry Christmas from @WikiLeaks" with an embedded video referencing perpetual war, and the hashtags #Yemen #Libya #Iraq #Syria #Pakistan #Afghanistan #Somalia #Ukraine

Merry Christmas from @WikiLeaks https://t.co/lmsmphuH2Nhttps://t.co/cGRnpjx6O8https://t.co/PkYqIcOZJW #Yemen #Libya #Iraq #Syria #Pakistan #Afghanistan #Somalia #Ukraine

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 1, 2017

Some have suggested that the events are part of some Christmas-linked plan, although so far there has been no confirmation. 

The account deletion comes on the heels of a break-in last Monday at the Madrid office of WikiLeaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon"s, in what police described as a "very professional" operation. Garzon told El Periodico and Ser magazine "They had not taken what they have been looking for," and client security "has not been affected," however police are analyzing his computer equipment to determine whether any files were taken or copied. 

Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange published a tweet calling a Jimmy Dore video "Brilliant" - prominently featuring Assange"s interview with a Dutch television host in which the WikiLeaks founder strongly implies that slain DNC IT staffer Seth Rich was the source of emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.  (Assange clip at 21:30)

During the clip, Assange can be seen nodding his head in response to a question about Rich:

In August, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher travelled to London with journalist Charles Johnson for a meeting with Assange, where Rohrabacher said the WikiLeaks founder offered "firsthand" information proving that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, and which would refute the Russian hacking theory.

Rohrabacher brought that message back to Trump"s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to propose a deal. In exchange for a presidential pardon, Assange would share evidence that would refute the Russian hacking theory by proving they weren"t the source of the emails, according to the WSJ. 

“The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.”

 

‘He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,’ Mr. Rohrabacher said.

When Trump was asked in late September about the Assange proposal, he responded that he"d "never heard" of it, causing Rohrabacher to unleash on John Kelly, who he blamed for blocking the proposal from reaching the President, Rohrabacher told the Daily Caller: 

“I think the president’s answer indicates that there is a wall around him that is being created by people who do not want to expose this fraud that there was collusion between our intelligence community and the leaders of the Democratic Party,” Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller Tuesday in a phone interview.

 

“This would have to be a cooperative effort between his own staff and the leadership in the intelligence communities to try to prevent the president from making the decision as to whether or not he wants to take the steps necessary to expose this horrendous lie that was shoved down the American people’s throats so incredibly earlier this year,” Rohrabacher said.

Contributing to the notion of deep-state interference, CIA director Mike Pompeo referred to WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service" in April, calling Julian Assange "a fraud, a coward hiding behind a screen" for exposing information about democratic governments rather than authoritarian regimes. This quite the ironic statement, considering Pompeo used leaked emails from WikiLeaks as proof "the fix was in" against President Trump. 

Mike Pompeo was sharing Wikileaks documents on his Congressional Twitter account less than a year ago pic.twitter.com/cl5P6vnXSE

— Jessica Schulberg (@jessicaschulb) April 13, 2017

 Let"s also not forget Donald Trump proclaiming "I Love Wikileaks!" less than a month before the 2016 election.

So Julian Assange - ostensibly the most important witness in the Russia hacking investigation, offered to prove that Russia was not the source of the leaked emails in exchange for a pardon. This proposition was conveyed through Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who Rohrabacher says never allowed the deal to reach Trump for consideration.  Months later, WikiLeaks attorney Baltasar Garzon"s office was raided in a "very professional" operation which is being labeled an attempted robbery. Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange tweets a Jimmy Dore video containing his own strong implication that Seth Rich was the source of the leaked emails, and six days later his Twitter account is gone. 

That said, tweets directly from the WikiLeaks urge not to jump to conclusions.

Assange"s account deletion also comes on the heels of several new Twitter rules rolled out on December 18, which many feared was the beginning of a "purge" of conservative accounts over user behavior both on and off the platform. The rules are aimed at people who associate with hate groups that "use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes" - however nothing Assange has done comes close to fitting that description.

So did Julian Assange delete his Twitter account - and if so, why? Was this yet another rogue Twitter employee lashing out on their last day, as was the case with President Trump"s temporary account deletion in early November? Or did Twitter delete the account of one of the most important figures in the 2016 election. 

UK Prosecutors Admit Destroying Emails In Julian Assange Case

Next month will mark seven years since Julian Assange first sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Even though Sweden dropped a sex crimes investigation into Assange back in May, he has been forced to remain confined to a cramped room, where he has no access to the outdoors, since AG Jeff Sessions reaffirmed that the DOJ intends to prosecute Assange for his role in leaking the Iraq war logs, State Department cables and DNC emails.

And with a Freedom of Information case brought by a journalist for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica set to be decided in London next week, surprising details published by the Guardian Friday suggest a representative for the UK government intentionally discouraged Swedish investigators from meeting with Assange in person - something that investigators say could’ve led the country’s government to drop its charges against the Wikileaks founder years ago. The report also shows that the Crown Prosecution Service, the branch of UK law enforcement responsible for criminal prosecutions, deleted emails pertaining to Assange"s extradition case after the lawyer in charge of it - the same lawyer who advised Swedish investigators not to interview Assange in London - retired.

The Crown Prosecution Service is facing embarrassment after admitting it destroyed key emails relating to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy fighting extradition.

 

Email exchanges between the CPS and its Swedish counterparts over the high-profile case were deleted after the lawyer at the UK end retired in 2014.

 

The destruction of potentially sensitive and revealing information comes ahead of a tribunal hearing in London next week.

 

Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff. In a laughably ironic admission, the prosecutors’ office said it had no knowledge of the content of the emails - but assured the Guardian that they didn’t contain anything that could’ve influenced the outcome of a criminal case involving Assange.

UK government officials have said the CPS inadvertently destroyed the emails after the lawyer in charge of the Assange extradition case retired in 2014. By that time, an office spokesperson said, the case had been settled.

 

Amazing: not only did UK authorities destroy key docs in the Assange case, but they pressured Sweden not to interrogate Assange in the UK, which gave rise to the 6-year standoff: https://t.co/VY8DlL2FIe

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 10, 2017

 

Of course, one can’t help but wonder, given the repeated denials and stonewalling, if this is some kind of coverup. Assange’s allies feared that if he had been extradited to Sweden, he could then be extradited from Sweden to the US.

The CPS, responding to questions from the Guardian, denied there were any legal implications of the data loss for an Assange case if it were to come to court in the future. Asked if the CPS had any idea what was destroyed, a spokesperson said: “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted."

 

Assange, whose WikiLeaks has been involved in a series of controversial leaks that include the Iraq war logs, US state department cables and Democratic party emails, was wanted by Sweden as part of a preliminary investigation into rape allegations. Sweden dropped the investigation in May.

 

Detractors of Assange, who sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in 2012, accuse him of collaborating with Russian propagandists in undermining Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency and helping Donald Trump secure it.

 

Supporters of Assange fear he could have been extradited to the US from Sweden and might yet from the UK. The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said this year Assange was a priority for the justice department and US federal prosecutors are believed to be considering charges against him over the leaks.

The FOIA request that led to this revelation was filed by Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi a reporter for the Italian Newspaper La Repubblica, who will be represented at the FOIA hearing next week by two Barristers.

Maurizi unearthed two years ago, through an FOI request to the Swedish prosecutors, an email from a lawyer in the CPS extradition unit on Jan. 25 2011 saying: “My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK."

The sentence was redacted in the email obtained by Maurizi from the CPS under an FOI request but not when it was released under an FOI request from the Swedish prosecutors.

As La Repubblica points out, Assange is the only western publisher being arbitrarily detained in Europe, according to two decisions by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions in February 2016, a decision that has completely faded into oblivion. Dec. 7 will mark seven years since he lost his freedom, yet as far as we know, in the course of these last 7 years no media has tried to access the full file on Julian Assange. Maurizi will appear before a Freedom of Information tribunal in London on Monday to argue for the release of more information. Jennifer Robinson, a Doughty Street chambers barrister, and Estelle Dehon, who specialises in freedom of information, will be representing Maurizi at the tribunal, set for Monday and Tuesday.

Specifically, La Repubblica will be defending the press’s right to access the documents regarding Assange’s case after trying in vain for the last two years. Maurizi, a reporter on La Repubblica who has covered Wikileaks since 2009, has been pressing both the CPS and its Swedish counterpart for information relating to Assange and extradition.

Government spokespeople dispute the notion that the Assange case was “live” when the emails were inadvertently deleted in 2012 because the extradition proceedings had concluded. However, Assange remains trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy.

Unhappy over the limited material released so far, she is taking her case against the CPS to an information tribunal on Monday and Tuesday.

“It is incredible to me these records about an ongoing and high-profile case have been destroyed. I think they have something to hide,” Maurizi said.

By securing the release of more documents, she is hoping to establish how much influence the UK had in the decision of the Swedish authorities at the time not to travel to London to interview Assange. She is also looking for evidence of US involvement in extradition moves.

Assange declined to travel to Sweden at the time, expressing fear it was a ruse that could pave the way for his extradition to the US. His lawyers offered a compromise in which Swedish investigators could interview him in person in London or by a video link, but the Swedish authorities did not take up the offer at the time.

If we’re reading this correctly, it would appear that a lawyer in the CPS unilaterally discouraged Swedish investigators not to interview Assange in person, knowing that Assange wouldn’t travel to Sweden voluntarily for fear of being extradited to the US. While Assange’s lawyers offered Sweden the opportunity to interview their client via video link, Swedish authorities declined to accept.

This helped pave the way for a yearslong diplomatic standoff, all the while forcing Assange to live under conditions that even prisoners in US maximum security prisons aren’t forced to endure - indeed, at least prisoners are allowed at least an hour outdoors per day.

Robinson, who has also represented Assange, said: “The missing information raises concerns about the Crown Prosecution Service’s data retention policy and what internal mechanisms are in place to review their conduct of this case in light of the fact the UK has been found to have breached its international obligations."

A spokesperson for the CPS said the agency has more than 50 files on Assange, and depending on the tribunal’s final ruling next week, much of the information contained therein could be released to the public.

We’re certainly curious to learn more.

 

Big case on my detention Monday+Tuesday next week https://t.co/c5WbwKqwZf

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) November 10, 2017

 

Julian Assange In Jeopardy As Exit Poll Shows Lasso Winning Ecuador Presidency

It may be the worst possible news for Julian Assange. Or the best, depending on which exit poll of the Ecuador presidential election is right.

With the results of the Ecuador presidential run-off race set to be announced in hours, two exit polls projected two different winners in a tight election in OPEC"s smallest member nation on Sunday evening, sparking celebrations in the rival camps of a leftist government-backed candidate and a former banker. As Reuters reports, the final results could take days to tabulate, the electoral council has warned, in a race that could extend a decade of leftist rule or usher in more business-friendly policies in the oil-rich Andean country.

According to one exit poll, conservative challenger Guillermo Lasso had 53.02% of votes versus 46.98% for government-backed Lenin Moreno, an exit poll by leading pollster Cedatos showed on Sunday afternoon. With Cedatos considered one of the most trustworthy polls, the Lasso camp broke into cheers, with supporters waving flags and honking horns in wealthier northern Quito.

"Today a new Ecuador is born, the Ecuador of democracy, the Ecuador of freedom," Lasso told a crowd chanting: "Lasso President!" in his sweltering coastal hometown, Guayaquil.

Meanwhile, a separate exit poll by Perfiles de Opinion showed Moreno with 52.2% of the vote versus 47.8% for Lasso. Moreno was more measured, telling supporters in Quito: "We have a very trustworthy lead." He urged Ecuadoreans to await final results.

The results will have substantial geopolitical implications, and South America is watching closely to see if Ecuador will follow Argentina, Brazil and Peru in shifting to the right as a commodities boom ends.

But the polarized country is also bracing for potential unrest after a tense campaign. Both candidates have called for their supporters to take to the street and "defend the vote."

The two contenders could not be more different.

Moreno, 64, a paraplegic former vice-president, just missed the minimum threshold to win the presidency in the first round in February, and polls leading up to Sunday"s runoff showed him leading Lasso. Moreno, who has used a wheelchair since being shot during a robbery in 1998, has promised to boost social benefits to single mothers, pensioners and disabled Ecuadoreans while being more conciliatory than the mercurial Correa.

Lasso, a 61-year-old former head of Banco de Guayaquil who has campaigned on creating one million jobs in four years, argues that Moreno"s generous social promises risk plunging Ecuador"s economy further into debt. He also accuses the ruling Country Alliance party of covering up corruption scandals, stifling media, and stacking institutions with supporters in the vein of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a Correa ally. As Reuters notes, Venezuela"s political upheaval cast a shadow over Ecuador"s vote, with Lasso supporters fearing their country could turn the way of the crisis-hit nation.

* * *

But the biggest reason why the presidential election is being closely watched by the international community is that its outcome may seal the fate of Julian Assange.

Lasso, who according to the Cedatos poll is the winner, has vowed that if he wins the WikiLeaks founder’s time in the Ecuador embassy in London will be up. Lasso has said he would “cordially ask Señor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate”, because his presence in the Knightsbridge embassy was a burden on Ecuadorian taxpayers.

Meanwhile, Lenin Moreno, has said Assange would remain welcome, albeit with conditions. “We will always be alert and ask Mr Assange to show respect in his declarations regarding our brotherly and friendly countries,” Moreno said.

As the Guardian wrote on March 31 ahead of Sunday"s election, the Australian’s legal team are extremely worried.

“We are obviously very concerned that any candidate would threaten to undermine the protection that the Ecuadorian state has granted Julian,” said Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer at Doughty Street Chambers who is a member of Assange’s UK legal team. “No government should play politics with the granting of asylum. It’s a legal protection provided for under international law, Ecuador has granted that protection, they have recognised him as a refugee, and now they have obligations to protect him whatever happens in the elections.”

Assange’s team are reluctant to be drawn on what legal avenues they might be able to pursue, but he is understood to have instructed lawyers in Quito, while others are looking at whether they may have potential options through the Inter-American and European courts of human rights.

Making matters for Assange worse, British authorities are adamant that, should Assange leave the embassy under any circumstances, he will be immediately arrested and sent to Sweden, which has been seeking to extradite him over an allegation of rape dating from 2010, which Assange denies.

In short, Assange’s best hope in the short term, is a Moreno victory. If that does not happen as at least one poll suggests, international human rights groups might rally in his defence, or WikiLeaks might uncover material to put pressure on Lasso. But according to Arturo Moscoso, an Ecuadorian lawyer and academic, Assange should not expect Ecuadorian public opinion to come to the rescue: “For many it’s a headache.”

 “No organisation, no law and no person can prevent the president from revoking the status of political asylum.” Assange’s asylum was granted by a presidential decree and could just as easily be removed by one, he said.

Curiously, while many have implied Russian "interference" in every major recent geopolitical event, from the Brexit vote, to the US presidential election, to the upcoming elections in France and Germany, few have discussed whether or not the Kremlin would be "manipulating" the results of the Ecuador presidential election, especially since the fate of one of the men rumored to have been collaborating with Putin, Julian Assange, is now on the line and could result in a protracted prison sentence.

Then again, it"s just one exit poll, which as recent events have demonstrated, can be painfully wrong. One person - the founder of Wikileaks - will spend the night praying that it is.

Assange "Stands By" Extradition Offer; Promises "Big Publishing Year" In 2017

Just yesterday we noted that Julian Assange and his lawyers were seemingly shying away from an offer they previously made to the Obama administration whereby Assange agreed to U.S. extradition in return for clemency for Chelsea Manning (see "Assange"s Lawyer Provides An "Out": Says Conditions Not Met For Extradition Deal").  While initial tweets from WikiLeaks implied that the extradition deal was still on, a follow-up from Assange"s U.S. attorney seemed to declare a technical breach of "contract."

“Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning"s sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought,” said Barry Pollack, Assange’s United State’s attorney.

“Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately.”

That said, on a live press conference held earlier today on periscope, Assange once again confirmed that he "stands by everything I said including the offer to go to the United States if Chelsea Manning"s sentence was commuted."

"We look forward to having a conversation with the DoJ [Department of Justice] about what the correct way forward is."

"I"ve always been willing to go to the United States provided my rights are respected because this is a case that should never have occurred."

The full press conference can be viewed here:

LIVE WikiLeaks general press conf #askWL https://t.co/mm5nJ3COkE

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 19, 2017

Meanwhile, irrespective of what happens with his personal extradition agreement, Assange promised a "big publishing year" in 2017 with the popularity of the "Podesta Emails" encouraging other sources to come forward with new leaks.

Assange promised a “big publishing year ahead” for WikiLeaks, adding “I’m in love with the publications we have coming.”

Following the media coverage the Podesta emails garnered, Assange said “that exposure has, like it always does, encouraged other sources to come forward.”

“We have a lot of material to get through, it takes time,” he said, concluding that WikiLeaks’ decade-long record of accuracy is a valuable reputation to maintain.

Among a litany of other topics, Assange also touched on the "fake news" epidemic saying that Facebook was "more or less in the tank for Clinton" and has become "integrated with the U.S. establishment."

Assange described Facebook’s attempts to stop fake news as “super interesting,” saying that as Facebook “became rich [it] has integrated with the US establishment,” adding the social media site was “more or less in the tank for Clinton” during the election.

“Organizations like Facebook are permitting many people to publish billions at the touch of a button - that’s breaking down the control structure,” he said. ”That is a new circumstance in democracy.”

Finally, touching on a topic we"ve written about frequently in recent months, Assange discussed the attempts of the establishment to dismiss any hint of legitimate opposition from a pissed off electorate as nothing more than a reflection of Russian propaganda....

“There is that environment now, where you can see the incentives, so whatever propaganda Russia may be putting out, through RT or elsewhere, and it certainly has its angle on things, you can see the incentives for incumbents, like Merkel, just like we could see with Clinton to try and hype up an issue about potential Russian involvement."

“It’s not that they [the incumbents] have a genuine opposition.  It’s not that the people are annoyed with misbehavior in government, and of course there is, I’m not saying anything in particular about Merkel"s government, but as a government who misbehaves, well, there’s an attempt to go, any criticism of governmental misbehavior, corruption,  or incompetence, well it’s not the opposition or the people making a fuss, no it’s secretly the Russians.”

...though we"re sure the Russians told Assange to say all of the above so we highly recommend you take it all with a grain of salt.