Assange lawyer says she saw Trump ally offer to arrange pardon

[Rogue Valley]

Assange lawyer says she saw Trump ally offer to arrange pardon

LONDON (Reuters) - A lawyer for Julian Assange told a London court on Friday that she was present when an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump offered to arrange a pardon for the WikiLeaks founder in return for information that would “benefit President Trump politically”. Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting to avoid being sent to the United States, where he is charged with conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law over the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011. His lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said in a witness statement to the court that she observed a meeting at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017 between Assange and Republican then-U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher. She said Rohrabacher and an assistant offered to arrange a pardon for Assange in return for information about the hacking of Democratic emails before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “They stated that President Trump was aware of and had approved of them coming to meet with Mr Assange to discuss a proposal – and that they would have an audience with the President to discuss the matter on their return to Washington DC,” she said. “The proposal put forward by Congressman Rohrabacher was that Mr. Assange identify the source for the 2016 election publications in return for some form of pardon, assurance or agreement, which would both benefit President Trump politically and prevent U.S. indictment and extradition,” Robinson said. During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published a series of Democratic National Committee emails damaging to candidate Hillary Clinton. U.S. investigators have concluded that the emails were hacked by Russia as part of an effort to influence the election.

With the Trump administration, no matter which way one looks at it, there is always a criminal element looking back. In this instance, a collusion/conspiracy quid-pro-quo.