[Peace] John Kiriakou: The Railroad That Awaits Julian Assange

[Robert Naiman]

*John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the
Espionage Act – a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in
prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's
torture program.*

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/56007-rsn-the-railroad-that-awaits-julian-assange
The Railroad That Awaits Julian Assange

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

13 April 19



he Justice Department said Thursday that it was charging Julian Assange
with one felony count of conspiring to hack into a computer. In the greater
scheme of things, that’s a nonsensical charge. There are probably 10,000
fat, lonely guys, living in their parents’ basements who the government
could charge with that crime on any given day.

Assange’s attorneys in the UK say the extradition process might last five
years because it will likely end up in the European Court of Justice. If
true, conceivably Assange could be detained for five years
awaiting extradition, or roughly the same amount of time he might be
sentenced to if convicted on the computer hacking charge.

Justice Department policy defines time in detention under almost any
circumstance as time served. So if there ever were a trial in the US for
the computer hacking charge it would likely be nothing more than a
show trial.

Additional charges after the application for extradition has been filed are
unlikely, due to limitations in extradition treaties requiring full
disclosure of all charges prior to an extradition being considered. But
that’s not the issue here.

No matter what happens, no matter what the charges, Julian cannot and will
not get a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Eastern District of Virginia is known as the “Espionage Court” for a
reason. No national security defendant has ever won a case there. Never.
And Judge Leonie Brinkema reserves all national security cases for herself.
She has Julian’s case, she judged my case, as well as the case of CIA
whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, and we know that she has also reserved what
will be the Ed Snowden case for herself.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll tell you about what I
went through in Judge Brinkema’s courtroom. None of it was good. And Julian
should expect exactly the same.

When I was arrested after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program,
I was charged with five felonies – three counts of espionage, one count of
violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1981, and one count
of making a false statement. Of course, I hadn’t committed espionage, nor
had I made any false statement. (I’m still not exactly sure what the false
statement was supposed to have been.) But those charges were used as
leverage to eventually force me to take a plea. When I said that I wasn’t
interested in a plea and that I wanted to go to trial, the prosecutors
threatened to add a second false statements charge and a charge of
obstruction of justice – two throwaway felonies that could be used as
additional leverage. I told them to bring it on, but they never did add
those charges.

The government will invoke something in Julian’s case called CIPA – the
Classified Information Protection Act. That means that the court must do
everything possible to “protect” classified information from being
revealed, even to the jury. The first thing that’s done in a CIPA trial is
that the courtroom is sealed. The only people allowed inside are the
defendant and the defendant’s attorneys, the prosecutors, the bailiff, the
clerk, and the judge. The jury also would be there in the event of a jury
trial, but it gets a little more complicated in that case. The bailiff will
lock the courtroom doors and put tape around them, and he’ll cover the
windows with plastic or canvas, all so that nobody outside can hear
anything.

If there’s a jury trial, the judge will insist that “classified” words or
phrases not be uttered, but instead must be replaced by unclassified words.
For example, “Did you hack into NSA’s computers and download documents from
Operation Widget?” becomes “Did you hack into Castle’s computers and
download documents from Operation Pilates?” It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t
it? Well, it is ridiculous. More importantly, it’s very confusing for
jurors, many of whom may conclude, “Wow, there are so many classified words
that are being discussed! He must be guilty!”

Julian’s attorneys also will make a number of motions, both for discovery
and for the declassification of documents necessary for his defense. Judge
Brinkema is unlikely to approve any of them. Again, in my case, my
attorneys made 70 motions to declassify 70 separate classified documents
necessary for my defense. We blocked off two full days for the hearings, as
did the prosecutors. But when we got to the courtroom, Judge Brinkema began
by saying, “I’m going to make this easy for everyone. I’m going to deny all
70 of these motions.” Her thinking was that I either did it (committed a
crime) or I didn’t. There was no reason to “jeopardize national security”
if she was going to eventually convict me anyway. So my attorneys had
literally nothing to present in my defense.

We didn’t roll over, of course. My attorneys objected and were overruled.
The prosecution then asked for an in-camera conversation with the judge.
That’s a private conversation between the judge and the prosecutors without
my attorneys present. My attorneys objected strenuously. The judge
overruled them again and she went into chambers with prosecutors. As
crazily unconstitutional as this may sound, it is permitted in a national
security case. To this day I have no idea what was said in that room. But
when she came out, the judge looked at my attorneys and reiterated her
decision to overrule the objection. And then, much to my shock, she looked
at me and said, “This case better not go to trial.” The hearing ended. It
had begun only 15 minutes earlier.

As we walked out of the courtroom, I asked my attorneys, “What just
happened in there?” “We just lost the case,” was the response. “What do we
do now?” I asked. “Now we take a plea.” A week later I changed my plea to
“guilty.” The government had come down from an offer of 10 years to one of
two-and-a-half. I would do 23 months. My attorneys thought that if I had
gone to trial, I would have lost and I would have realistically gotten
12-18 years. I had no choice.

At sentencing, the judge said that she was glad the case hadn’t gone to
trial. She didn’t want “more classified information out there in the public
domain.” But then she said, “I don’t like this deal. I don’t like it at
all. If I could, Mr. Kiriakou, I would give you 10 years. But my hands are
tied.” I left for federal prison six weeks later.

Julian is likely in for the same kind of treatment. There no justice to be
found at the Justice Department. There’s only punishment for unpopular
opinions and actions. Julian has a great soapbox now. The stakes are high,
but he has to defend his actions and talk about the freedoms of speech and
the press that are so basic and important to the survival of our country.
The Justice Department may have finally bitten off more than it can chew.
We can only hope.
===

Robert Reuel Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1
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