This article is more than 1 year old

Cuffing Assange a 'priority' for the USA says attorney-general

Charges against white-haired-one have reportedly been drafted

United States attorney-general Jeff Sessions says the Trump administration will make it “a priority” to arrest leakers, including Julian Assange.

Sessions on Thursday toured the US/Mexico border and later gave a press conference in El Paso.

Towards the end of that conference, at about the 15:40 mark of the video below, Sessions was asked whether the Trump administration and his department intends to target leakers such as Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.

Sessions responded by saying “We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our effort on all leaks.”

“This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I am aware of ,” he added. “We have professionals who have been in the security business in the United States that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.”

“So, yes, it is a priority,” he concluded. “We have already begun to step up our efforts and we may seek to put some people in jail.”

Youtube Video

It's unclear if Sessions was referring specifically to Assange, or if he was referring to the many leaks to news outlets that president Donald Trump has declared unacceptable.

Sessions' remarks came just hours after CNN reported that the US has prepared charges against Assange and a Washington Post report that the US Justice Department is considering charges against WikiLeaks.

Assange has been up early Tweeting but at the time of writing hasn't addressed the allegations or Sessions' remarks. He is, however, asking his followers if he should run in the UK's forthcoming elections. Assange's 2013 tilt at Australia's Senate ended in failure with just 1.18 per cent of the vote. That level of support gave him an outside chance of winning a seat under Australia's preferential voting system, but would leave him nowhere under the UK's first past the post system.

Here's the result of Assange's poll.

®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like