Assange pleaded guilty to violation of the Espionage Act for publishing classified material about U.S. government operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan beginning in 2009.
Put simply, what Assange did is no different than what The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and many other corporate media outlets do every day: they publish and report on classified material that was stolen or obtained illegally by sources.
The main difference between Assange and these outlets is that Assange did what he did in order to hold power to account, whereas the corporate press does it in service of power - at least when a Democratic administration is in the White House.
From the earliest days of Wikileaks, Assange's goal was to publish information that was beyond the control of states, specifically the U.S. government.
Some of these materials Assange received from Chelsea Manning, a trans-identifying man and former U.S. military intel officer who at the time went by his given name, Bradley Manning, and had access to hundreds of thousands of reports about the global war on terror, including sensitive information about confidential informants and sources working with the U.S. military overseas.
Charging Assange with espionage for publishing illegally leaked materials sets a horrible precedent for free speech and journalism.
The only difference is that Assange was honest about his ideological commitments and didn't falsely represent himself and Wikileaks as a "Neutral" media organization the way legacy media outlets do.
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