Stella Assange
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.33452
Summary
Julian Assange has not been charged with a crime in Great Britain, and yet he's being held there . Julian Assange's wife, Stella, is leading the effort to stop his extradition to the United States, where he would wind up in a supermax prison, never to be heard from again until he dies . He said he first became famous when WikiLeaks published documents that the U.S. government had kept secret from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Julian Assange has been locked away in one place or another for more than a decade.
00:00:16.100
Julian Assange is so despised by elements within the permanent U.S. government that at one point,
00:00:22.600
CIA Director Mike Pompeo discussed murdering him in the Ecuadorian embassy in London,
00:00:28.180
where he was seeking asylum. Mike Pompeo has never been charged for that, which is a crime.
00:00:34.660
Unelected bureaucrats can't just murder people they don't like, and he probably never will be
00:00:40.820
charged with a crime. Virtually the entire ruling class in Washington is opposed to Julian Assange,
00:00:46.080
and that's the reason that he has sat for years now in Belmarsh Prison in London. Keep in mind,
00:00:52.220
Julian Assange has not been charged with a crime in Great Britain, and yet he's being held there.
00:00:56.060
So this fall, we went to Belmarsh, and we asked Julian Assange, why do you think you're being
00:01:01.900
held as the most wanted man in America without ever being charged with a real crime? Here's what he
00:01:07.240
told us. We talked about why he is in prison, and my first question to him was, what do you think this
00:01:13.800
is actually about, since you haven't been accused of a crime? And he said something that really struck
00:01:19.440
me, and I think having spent my life in Washington is absolutely right. He said he first became famous
00:01:24.980
when WikiLeaks published documents and videos that the U.S. government had kept secret from the
00:01:32.840
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were gravely embarrassing to the Pentagon. But that wasn't
00:01:38.740
the red line. The red line was several years later when WikiLeaks published information about
00:01:44.400
surveillance by the CIA. And so I asked him directly, are you aware of anyone being harmed or
00:01:49.820
killed on the basis of information that he published? He said, of course not. And he said
00:01:56.020
it in a sincere way. Like, by the way, I think if people were killed because of his publishing,
00:02:01.720
because of the stories that he put online, he would feel bad about it. I mean, he seems like
00:02:07.840
a humane person. He went to, he withheld information about CIA because he didn't want to get people
00:02:12.320
hurt. He famously published the contents of Hillary Clinton's email account. I asked him,
00:02:20.980
when you publish these emails, did you realize how powerful Hillary Clinton was?
00:02:27.920
We had a conversation about that. And I said, looking back, you know, do you regret doing that?
00:02:31.940
He goes, honestly, it was fun. You'll notice that Julian Assange was not in that clip. That was a recap
00:02:38.800
of our conversation with Julian Assange. And the reason we did that was they wouldn't allow us to
00:02:42.660
interview him on camera. So not only are they holding him, they hope until he dies, in a maximum
00:02:48.640
security prison, but they're also preventing him from telling his own story to the world.
00:02:53.700
All of this is a crime. Every person running for president of the United States should be forced
00:02:57.640
to answer the question, will you pardon Julian Assange if he ever winds up on American soil? So far,
00:03:02.840
no one has been forced to answer that question. We hope that will change. The woman you saw in the clip
00:03:06.640
is Julian Assange's wife, Stella. She has been his greatest advocate in the free world,
00:03:12.900
and she is now leading the effort to stop his extradition to the United States, where he would
00:03:17.360
wind up in a supermax prison, never to be heard from again until he dies. She is a lawyer, a human
00:03:22.600
rights activist, and we're honored to have her join us now. Stella Assange, thank you so much for coming
00:03:27.820
on. Can you give us an update, because I know this is taking place right now, it's in progress currently,
00:03:32.360
what the status of this extradition hearing is? Well, look, we've just been in court for two days,
00:03:39.740
and this decision could be the final one. We didn't know when we were coming into it yesterday,
00:03:47.660
whether we would have a decision today. And if the UK decides in favor of the US,
00:03:53.860
then it will put Julian on a plane to the US. I mean, that is how imminent it is. So really, it's a very,
00:04:03.940
very high-risk moment for Julian. And what happened during these two days is that the two judges said that
00:04:15.120
they would withhold their decision until, well, they haven't set a date, but at least a week.
00:04:23.520
And so we don't know what will happen next. It remains the case that if he loses this round,
00:04:29.340
then that's it in the UK. There's no further possibility for appeal. He can try to go to the
00:04:35.680
European Court of Human Rights. But last year, only one application to the European Court of Human
00:04:42.640
Rights to stop an extradition or deportation was granted out of 63 applications. So it's really just
00:04:48.700
in extremely rare cases. Of course, we say this is one of them. This is one where there would be
00:04:53.980
irreparable harm. And of course, the European Court of Human Rights should stop an extradition
00:04:59.120
if the UK finds against him, but it's not a given. So Julian could be on US soil within a matter of weeks.
00:05:07.300
That's still the case. I'm confused by the role of the UK in this. As far as I understand,
00:05:13.860
he's never been charged with a crime in the United Kingdom. And yet the UK government is holding him,
00:05:21.080
holding a journalist without charging him. I mean, this is what we accuse Russia and Iran and North
00:05:26.100
Korea of doing. Why are British politicians degrading their own system and their history
00:05:33.360
on behalf of the United States government? I feel like I'm missing something here.
00:05:39.820
Well, this is the default state of affairs. The UK views itself as a lapdog. I mean, it was
00:05:49.540
obvious in court at one point. One of the judges asked the US,
00:05:54.320
well, if your argument is that if the Home Secretary sees that the US issued this extradition request
00:06:07.480
and that it's wrong on the face of it, that she wouldn't be able to do anything. And the US
00:06:13.580
lawyers said, yeah, that's precisely right. It's completely lopsided. The US can do whatever it
00:06:18.920
wants, basically. And that was part of their arguments in court. I mean, not to get too much
00:06:23.040
into the weeds of the court proceedings, but basically what they were saying was you have
00:06:26.640
to take these statements of these prosecutors at face value. You don't want to offend the United
00:06:33.560
States, our ally. You would be implying that the prosecutors were lying. And of course, that would
00:06:40.280
never be the case. So they were trying to convince the court that they should just take it all at
00:06:45.180
face value. And of course, inside the courtroom, it's like they're running two parallel cases. I mean,
00:06:51.380
we're running the case that the true reality, which is that Julian's a journalist that exposed the
00:06:58.360
wrongdoing of the country that's trying to extradite him. And the US is, you know, just trying
00:07:03.000
to attack Julian with all sorts of nonsense. The UK is a willing participant. Of course, his imprisonment
00:07:12.400
has gone for so long. He's been, you know, in Belmarsh high security prison for almost five years.
00:07:20.500
But before that, in the embassy, in the Ecuadorian embassy in the heart of London. And during this
00:07:25.740
time, when he was in the embassy, it was surrounded by by British police, they were spending something
00:07:33.620
like millions and millions, I think it was 5 million pounds a year on surrounding the embassy. And he was
00:07:41.640
not charged with a crime at the time. It was a it was a show of force. And of course, it was a show of
00:07:47.500
force on behalf, you know, by this British police, but to show the United States that that they were,
00:07:54.740
you know, that they were. They were showing their their allegiance, basically. And that's how we've
00:08:01.560
had this this lawlessness for over a decade to hound Julian and to kind of send a signal and his his
00:08:10.860
imprisonment in Belmarsh, you know, is part of a game that they play that the US says, well, the UK is
00:08:16.440
keeping him. It's not really us. He's not in the you on US soil. And the UK goes, well, it's not really
00:08:22.120
us because this is a US extradition request. And he's been there for almost five years. And so they
00:08:26.280
play this game. And they, you know, he he he's no one's responsibility. And it's just it's a game
00:08:41.840
Hillsdale College offers many great free online courses, including a recent one on Marxism,
00:08:48.120
socialism and communism. Today, Marxism goes by different names to make itself seem less dangerous.
00:08:54.220
Names like critical race theory, gender theory and decolonization. No matter the names, this online
00:09:00.300
course shows it's the same Marxism that works to destroy private property, and that will lead to famines,
00:09:05.480
show trials and gulags. Start learning online for free at Tucker for Hillsdale.com. That's Tucker
00:09:14.580
for Hillsdale.com. Tucker says it best. The credit card companies are ripping Americans off and enough
00:09:24.260
is enough. This is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas. Our legislation, the Credit Card Competition Act
00:09:31.100
would help in the grip Visa and MasterCard have on us. Every time you use your credit card, they charge
00:09:37.700
you a hidden fee called a swipe fee, and they've been raising it without even telling you. This hurts
00:09:43.320
consumers and every small business owner. In fact, American families are paying $1,100 in hidden swipe
00:09:50.580
fees each year. The fees Visa and MasterCard charge Americans are the highest in the world, double
00:09:57.300
candidates, and eight times more than Europe's. That's why I've taken action, but I need your help
00:10:02.880
to help get this passed. I'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the Credit
00:10:09.120
Card Competition Act. Paid for by the Merchants Payments Coalition. Not authorized by any candidate
00:10:14.280
or candidate's committee. www.merchantspaymentscoalition.com.
00:10:18.360
Does it, I know you live there, but you follow American politics. Was it surprising to you that
00:10:25.440
Mike Pompeo, the neocon former CIA director who plotted to murder your husband, who had not been
00:10:31.560
charged with anything in the U.S. at that point, that he was allowed to continue to be prominent
00:10:37.820
in the United States? He ran for president after that, and no one in the American media said anything
00:10:42.740
about it, really, with a few exceptions, but no one even mentioned that. You tried to murder your
00:10:47.320
husband. What did you think of that? Well, I think the CIA is a rogue organization that everyone
00:10:57.700
on every level of the U.S. politics is terrified of, and they are trained to assassinate. They are trained
00:11:09.460
to fabricate information and place it in the media and conduct propaganda warfare and to overthrow,
00:11:22.820
you know, governments and so on. And, you know, not just abroad, it seems that there's a credible
00:11:30.400
case that they've done so domestically too. I mean, looking at this objectively, you think,
00:11:36.500
well, what on earth is this? You know, there's a whole spiel about, you know, U.S. democracy and so
00:11:45.880
on. And the CIA is an agency that has, you know, caused all sorts of trouble for many countries around
00:11:53.920
the world, but also domestically, they are a force for destabilization and compromise. And, you know,
00:12:02.800
Mike Pompeo's ability to, you know, move around Washington without consequence, I don't think is
00:12:12.440
because of his, I don't know, attractiveness to the Washington circles, but rather he's seen as a
00:12:25.220
dangerous person. But, you know, he tried to run for president and that didn't go very well.
00:12:30.160
And he wrote a book and no one bought it except for his pack or whatever. So there's that. But yeah,
00:12:38.080
he's a dangerous individual. And even within the CIA, I mean, we know this story about Julian and the
00:12:46.020
murder plot because people within his organization said that he had lost the plot, that he had become
00:12:53.180
obsessed with Julian, that he wanted to kill Julian, and that he was discussing it, you know,
00:13:00.100
in the White House and so on. So that means that there was, you know, internal disagreement about his
00:13:07.280
obsession. And that's a sign of hope, of course, within these organizations. There's always,
00:13:16.720
you know, different types of people with different levels of integrity and commitment to the Constitution
00:13:23.700
and so on. And the fact that many of them then spoke to these investigative journalists and exposed
00:13:36.460
the crazy Pompeo murder plot is, you know, commendable. And I'm personally very, very thankful
00:13:49.940
to them that they said something, not just because of the fact that we've been able to introduce it
00:13:59.380
in court, but because it shows that it goes against, you know, very basic rules of integrity and
00:14:09.960
that this obsession with Julian that Pompeo had is part of like a serious collapse,
00:14:19.680
even within the CIA that occurred during this time. Yeah, he is a dangerous person. He should be in
00:14:24.860
prison. And it's just striking that so few journalists ask him about that. None, so far
00:14:29.940
as I know. So tell me, if your husband is extradited to the United States, do you think
00:14:35.640
there's any chance he'll receive a presidential pardon? Any president who looks at this case and
00:14:47.580
understands how it is a danger to the future of the U.S., not just the Constitution, but the political
00:14:58.900
culture that there has been in the United States that has been built on openness and, you know, a vibrant
00:15:05.420
culture of opposition to centralized power? Yes. All of that will go out the window with this case. So
00:15:14.280
any president who actually values these traditional constitutional protections should free Julian in
00:15:24.840
whatever form that takes. If it's a pardon, then, you know, I welcome it. I frankly, I don't care how
00:15:33.440
he's freed. He just needs to be freed. The corruption and the lawlessness around Julian's case,
00:15:41.440
it's politically motivated. It's rotten to the core. All of that is self-evident. And whatever
00:15:49.560
happens, as long as Julian's free, you know, everything else is secondary as far as I'm concerned.
00:15:56.180
And my last question, how is he doing to the extent you can characterize it physically and psychologically?
00:16:01.720
Well, he's not doing well. He wasn't even attending these hearings. And this is, you know, the decisive
00:16:13.400
hearing for Julian. As I said, if he loses this round, and we don't know yet if he's lost, then he'll be put on
00:16:21.940
a plane to the United States unless we can prevent it some other way. But he wasn't even attending,
00:16:30.840
not even in person, not even over video link. He was able to call his lawyers during the hearing.
00:16:38.080
So he was following what was happening in court. But if he hadn't been kept in Belmarsh high security
00:16:44.780
prison during the past five years, he wouldn't be in this state of deterioration and decline. He would
00:16:54.160
of course have attended his own hearing, especially one like this. And I think it should be a wake-up call
00:17:03.460
that Julian's life is at risk, that every day he spends in prison is a day that his health
00:17:11.000
deteriorates. I mean, five years inside that prison, many people don't survive it. There have been many
00:17:16.880
people in Belmarsh who have committed suicide during this time, including a friend of Julian's who was
00:17:21.800
also inside the, who he met in the prison and who became a friend. And, you know, it's a harsh
00:17:31.180
environment and he's under enormous pressure. And he's, he knows that the United States is the country
00:17:39.940
that's plotted his assassination. So like the stakes, the stakes could not be higher. Uh, but he knows
00:17:45.900
there's a lot of support out there. Uh, he knows I'm doing this interview with Tucker and, uh, he knows
00:17:51.380
there's a lot of support. So that is also, uh, something that keeps him afloat. Um, he's a fighter
00:17:58.960
and I think, um, you know, I think the world's waking up. I've seen a lot of support. Actually,
00:18:07.180
I've seen a lot of attention this time round. The press is, I think, starting to realize what the
00:18:12.060
implications are and how, how serious this is and that it's not just about Julian, that it's actually,
00:18:18.540
um, threatening the press's ability to do its job in a very, very, uh, real way, especially the press
00:18:27.300
that does the most important work, the one that makes those in power, um, feel uncomfortable and
00:18:33.100
worried about their future careers and, and freedom. Yeah. Not many of those left, but, but
00:18:39.280
some. Stella Sanj, thank you so much for taking this time and Godspeed. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you.