no shannon told. a lot. of my idols. and not a great choice in the matter what they. are we not allowed to root against treacherous fictional cannibals any more welcome to twenty feet in one time. clearly the races of men and should of welcoming immigrants and the mountains of feasting on the mound fresh meat. how terribly racist. it is just

a good triumphs over evil story not meant to be that deep. where backcross talking in moments today peter and guess tackle the latest updates on the julian assange. international. seemed wrong but. just don't. let me. get to shape out these days because that's ahead and in detroit because of the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murderer i would

prefer an it be on the death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying just moon doesn't mean that we want even many of the terms families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families want that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way.

hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle the fate of julian assange is unclear washington is determined that he be sent to the u.s. to face criminal charges most likely under the one nine hundred seventy espionage act the british government is more than happy to make this happen even the ecuadorians are in the only app but we are watching unfold in front of our eyes is the criminalization of journalism. across talking julian assange which i'm joined by my guest joe lauria in washington he's editor in chief of consortium news dot com and author of how i lost by hillary clinton with a forward by julian assange also in washington. gareth porter he's an independent investigative journalist and historian as well as author of manufactured crisis the

untold story of the iran nuclear scare and in plymouth we cross to patrick kennings and he is a journalist writer and founder of the news website twenty first century wired dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it and i did open up by saying thanking all three of you to come here to speak out on the behalf of the profession known as journalism it's all it's pretty scarce profession at least. acted out in live by professionals so i'm glad that you're here gareth let me go to you first and let's talk about journalism because julian a songe is his case his case study as it were is a precedent in the making and it really galls me that the profession cannot see the slippery slope that we're all staring down at once it happens to julian assange as a publisher then who's next go ahead gareth well i can't agree

anymore with what you said it's clear that songe is on the block here in a way that is extremely dangerous to the profession of journalism. because it would in fact. i think you just suggested it would set a precedent for the u.s. government to go after journalists under a wide range of circumstances. as long as they can portray somebody as somehow connected with the enemy whatever that enemy might happen at the moment. yeah you know i think that that is indeed the issue that we're staring in the face here joe you did a wonderful interview with chris hedges and i commend everyone. to watch it as i think was absolutely brilliant explain to us how the espionage act could play out

these of julian assange because considering the conditions that he's living in in the ecuadorian embassy in london it sounds like it's getting pretty desperate over there they're obviously trying to flush him out without the ecuadorian embassy government being embarrassed we go through the list of things that they've done to him but it's obvious they want to give him the show of here how is the espionage act of one nine hundred seventeen play into this go ahead joe thank you peter yes the espionage act as play a big role in this if in fact he's been indicted as a criminal complaint is very likely under the one nine hundred seventeen espionage act however if he were indicted under the original nine hundred seventeen espionage act there would not have had two amendments that were made to the act one in one nine hundred fifty one and one nine hundred sixty one the one thousand nine hundred fifty criminalize possession of stolen documents classified documents in other words before that and it is still pretty much politically in this case that if

a publisher or a newspaper receives classified information and publishes it they are not like you considered to be liable only the person who stole the document the whistleblower who gave it to the publication but under the one nine hundred fifty. amendment now anyone who possesses it could in fact be prosecuted so even if doing a songe and we can we extend not actively take part in the crime of taking the documents because they had them and disseminated them they could be prosecuted however this is never happened yet because there we go we disastrous. yeah i mean because it's a political decision not a legal one but the other other memo i want to mention is people keep bringing up he's not an american citizen and this act. the publishing took place outside u.s. territory well the original nine hundred seventeen espionage act specifically said this had to take place on u.s. territory that was changed in one thousand sixty one when a congressman got upset by a state department official in poland who apparently gave in to blackmail while he was outside the u.s. so that the act was changed so you don't have to be on u.s.

territory anymore as well so if they want to go after him they can but it's never happened before the nixon administration did not go after senator mike gravel when he published the pentagon papers outside the congress where he's protected to say whatever he wants and it hasn't happened since john peters anger in sixteen thirty five colonial america that a government of britain then the british colonial govern went after a publisher for writing something that turned out to be true but they didn't like it because there are uncovered exposed crimes by the government so he's in a very precarious situation because the trump administration might be the first one to actually do this even though politically it's never been the right decision even though they have the legal tools they've never been used and i should add the new york times number two lawyer was out on the west coast few months ago and told judges in a speech that they did not want to songe prosecutor because the new york times could be next because that's right thing we can leaks does publish classified information you know patrick and that's the see that's the whole wrinkle here

because they're going to they're going to say that julian assigns was more than a publisher and that's why i think the report is very germane here because they want to make people believe because they because there's on the on the way they can do it they could actually do all of this against him if they get their hands on him in secret and we would never really know what evidence all we would have to do is believe the judge and believe moller which i wouldn't believe either considering what's happening here weigh in patrick go ahead with this in order that you just leave. if there is indeed will trying to to do. would essentially preserve the new. or to of us another way to go they are to go through the shirat of due process or whatever passes for due process today into these political environment and then preserve the narrative which essentially is russia gate a russian collusion which to date there has been no actual evidence to sort of substantiate

that and that's the premise of this whole. circus basically what robert mueller and his special council have been digging for and digging through dumpsters for for the last two years literally. literally recently to is is really a dumpster fire of fake news basically so but that's what that's the premise of the this whole thing. that you're absolutely correct that's the one danger but peter the other thing that very related to this is the case of a drone corsi which is in the news right now and they're trying to you know maneuver or try to maneuver corsi into a position where he would in fact you know libel himself essentially in order to accept a plea bargain which he's outright rejected but the point is and the point corsi made in an interview with miss n.b.c. which is an excellent example of a decent interview although it's quite tough the interview from you see but even if

a staunch it stole the documents himself and you know of course he still is protected as a journalist under the new york times versus the united states case with the pentagon papers so he has a right under basic press freedoms to go and find out and he can even look at them and he can report on them you add to this the context of the twenty sixteen election and of course he made his political biases known to the public he says i'm pro trump and of course i'm interested in this and see if i can help the trunk and paint drum corps he's been more honest and transparent and put his biases on the table more than. investigation which looks like the core. was on isstd but you know we can't guarantee to weigh in on that because i mean there are there is a long history of the espionage act being used but it wasn't really

journalism and even even the pentagon papers they never invoked did there this is the precedent that's being said here is that a publisher can be made to face charges under espionage as a traitor to his country country he's aiding and abetting an enemy whatever though there's no enemy has been a den of five in this in this case here so i mean this is the criminalization of journalism ice as i said in my introduction. well you know i think that's that's absolutely right i think what what you were talking about here is precisely a response to the the moeller team's need for the ability to squeeze joy in a sunshiny that appears to be the real prize that is that they see within their grasp or potential grasp i had thought originally that really this was about

the cia's embarrassment over the vulgarisms by wiki leaks of the vault seven documents because they were so clearly showing that the cia not only has been rampaging through all of the electronic media or electronic devices of everyone across the globe but that they had the capability and undoubtedly used it at some point or planning to use it to make it look like another foreign intelligence agency was responsible for the hacking and clearly the timing of the original decision that was announced to go after a songe came immediately after the release of the vault seven documents so there did appear to be a connection there but i am now more and more persuaded by the idea that there must

have been there must be a primary connection here with the mother of the mall or folks. you know minute to say time has to wonder one has to wonder but then you can kill a lot of birds with one stone this is like this is like that silver bullet you get russia gate taking care of you cal the media you get journalists in line it's a perfect storm if you're if you're at the state here fifteen seconds joe real quick and then i'll go back i think break we're talking about finish up garrett go ahead. peter i think what we're what we're what we're talking about is a convergence of two possible or likely sets of interests here that both are after assad for different reasons ok or i get right general i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion julian assange stay with art.

i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars and. more than ten thousand dollars prime stamping each day. eighty five percent of the global wealth you long for the ultra rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent from august last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per circuit first elected and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need remember in one one business showed you know ford to miss the one and only. in fact a recent poll of gallup poll shows fifty seven percent of americans want

a more cooperative relationship with russia so there's a disconnect that a smart politician democrat would understand needs to be seen because there's not a lot of hunger or appetite for this kind of any russian politics is being fanned by a media political establishment. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing julian assange. ok let me go back to joe in washington again you know this russia gate moeller report and julian assange i think it is all tightly connected particularly the timing here because i'm convinced with the public evidence that's available that julian assange did not get those protest the e-mails from russia he got it from

someone then probably on a memory stick ok the n.s.a. with all of its assets could have figured out if that amount of information had been sent over the internet it was vast ok so they would have been able to pick that up so so they know where it probably came from but it doesn't fit their narrative. julian assange in a secret court and all that all that you pull all the threads together you tie it up into one little pretty bow that the western media the liberal media will sell it saying gotcha joe what's your reaction. well absolutely in fact it goes back to two thousand and ten what the afghan war logs and the iraq collateral damage tape that's when julian and his lawyers believe the indictment was first made but now we do does bring itself very clearly into the russia gate story and ruler and luke harding

a journalist journalist at the guardian hear that sound the british government has a journalist masquerading as a as a clown you know go ahead. yeah but the real change here also is the ecuadorian government changed the previous government left wing under correll gave him a songe asylum was protecting him and this his status would not have changed but the new government is very close to the us and has been pressured by pence vice president prince and others and they want to get him out so these three can picking up on what garrett was saying about confluence of interest is the interest of the government get him out of the british and the us to get him and of luke harding to get his reputation restored because he recently unearthed a bestseller called collusion there is no evidence of collusion he has to go find some so the ecuadorian intelligence and the us knowing that the guy's going to be very open to anything it's fed him this absolutely fairy tale that paul manna from went in and then met with too many signs three times the last times more or less

when he became the head of the campaign they need to connect the trunk campaign to a sondre and we could mix and therefore they say to the russians they haven't been able to do this so this is an opportunity given to harding who grabbed it and ran with it without any video evidence of man for going in and out without his passport having been given or logging in at the embassy the zero evidence he went there they both fiercely denied both manifold and weekly leaks of weekly suing the guardian for this story so if russia gate has brought this absolute to a head ecuador wants him out you markets want him and they they need and moolah needs a collusion evidence because every indictment he has. put out has specifically said when they announce that there's no americans and no trump campaign people involved there's no collusion yet they haven't found it so they cooked up this story but none of which is i don't think it's going to go very far frankly peter because it is so ludicrous well patrick let me go to you i mean. luke harding is never really

bothered much with facts he does a different type of thing and i think you know what i mean. patrick one of the things that's really sad here is that if you look at the fascinating career of weiqi leaks and they've been right just every single time they have a wonderful track record no news agency can match that but through the career of weiqi leaks and julian assange she's made a lot of enemies during the bush years the democrats loved how george w. bush was criticized it with all the document releases but then when but that's to came around it switched now both parties and the deep state and feckless people who call themselves journalists don't want to stick their head out of the ground i could use other language but this is t.v. you know this is a perfect storm against julian a songe isn't it. you know it is if truth if truth was was the gold standard by which professional journalism was measured then wiki leaks and julian staunch

would be heralded heralded right now instead of hounded yeah joyce and could walk right out the door within weeks and he would have had everybody rolling on his side but there's been a major political alignment a realignment as it were and i think this began under the obama administration which has to do with a lot of things including the division or split of this of the antiwar left or the remnants of it opposed to bush but also the fact that russia that's the result of washington right now in terms of geopolitics and so the split is pronounced but the other thing is. that with the guardian two to knowingly they had a heads up the day before when the when the story was published online you needn't think that they were they still ran with it on the morning print edition the following morning i went to the newsstand and there was this completely fabricated

story and they had like at least i don't know how much time to stop the press. from the day before but they ran with anyway this tells me that there's a deep seated corruption within mainstream media outlets and i think it's becoming more than an open secret now that there is a sort of a level of penetration by the intelligence services in the west whether that's through influence or through actually in bed imbedded people in editorial desks or whatever but we have to thank luke harding and denny collins for helping to expose this we owe them a great debt of gratitude this week because it showed exactly what these mainstream media outlets are doing in a coordinated fashion and i know i'm going to add the anonymous document dump of the integrity initiative which is the m.k. and national endowment for democracy funded initiative working with mainstream journalists to coordinate anti russian talking points at the hub is the atlantic council and the dia phar lap's so that was exposed this week as well so all of

these exposures really point to a damning indictment that the fourth estate has become a fifth column yeah working against the interests of the public interests this is devastating in terms of the general narrative of the state of the media over there what's left of the free press in the west people should really take a step back and look at this this is an absolute circus what's playing out in front of this and that and i'm waiting for people of honest character to step forward people who care who they were where on there on this program ok there are a lot of there aren't very many more but some of them are here ok and we need more we need more of them and let me quickly just add to guardian then fold this up with a story by john swing from their new york bureau and they used a source is glenn simpson function g.p.s. and they didn't even mention that he works for fusion they just had an expert on the matter glenn simpson so my question is is is a fusion g.p.s.

using the guardian as as a dumping ground for all the leftovers now. it is just out of control it's to me it's amusing when garrett when one of the things it's fascinating to me and watching the julian assange. story and russia gate is that there is absolutely almost absolutely no downside in being wrong you know it as is a if you look at the pedestrian e-mails we learned a lot that's what makes them so angry that you learned a lot about hillary clinton in her campaign and we also learned for us on this program is that new york times journalists would send their copy to the d.n.c. to be proof read to be fact checked to be approved before it would be published now if that isn't the sad state of affairs for journalism i don't know what is ok you asked the powers that be that you genuflect to the powers that be to get permission

to print propaganda this is pathetic go ahead gareth that's that state of journalism now. you know i think the point is here that you can you can get away with almost anything as long as it is in line with the than the official. the accepted narrative and that that seems to be what we're seeing play out here but i have to say that there are limits of some sort in that. you know you can publish something that is so obviously off off the charts and that that is not believable that it causes problems and i think luke harding has strayed into that territory not the friend of whatever it is because of evidence that i would offer for that but at the right i would just point out that politico this morning had a piece by a former cia operative who suggests that luke harding was was

taken for a ride by somebody who. on the other side of the issue trying to discredit him which is a rather interesting well developed story ok well let me go let me go to jail i mean i met luke harding a couple of times here in moscow and he was really the laughingstock of the entire foreign press corps here so not the first time for this guy you know he's he has a real track record there maybe when you meet him ask him about his plagiarism of a. satirical magazine called the exile ask barkha ames he was the editor of it there joe what's you know again you know the our our numbers are thinning the people that want to do real journalism here i'm very pessimistic i don't see it turning around because you have a fusion of the media into the state and everybody's happy everyone's rich you don't have to think mary very much stupid people can be on t.v. a lot i mean everybody wins on their side it's all about status career ism vanity

fame money and the and the sucking up to people in power you know journalism has a power even greater than the power of government because our power if it's exercised is to keep those in power in check instead we see journalist it's been going on for a while now they have sucking up and living vicariously through the power of government officials and just taking whatever they say and not challenging it and this is what hartings problem was in this particular case he was sold a bill of goods yes but i think not because as garrett pointed out from that cia piece to try to discredit him by the people who were supporting assad but in fact they wanted to pass this story that manaf and went in there to try to establish the collusion he took that information and never said well that's interesting but show me the video of man for going in the sea in london if we're going to see is ring to it c.c.t.v. cameras the entire city of london is and where is manifest going in and out with the large hang on you're never challenged and this is the problem then you don't

challenge let me go to patrick last thirty seconds compare jim acosta and julian a songe thirty seconds big task go ahead. that's a difficult one peter in one sense i don't know look the point is and what i pointed out earlier last couple weeks ago is that you know the media the press spent days crying over jim acosta when in fact the most important person in the field of journalism who is under threat is julius on in the in the basement the ecuadorian embassy because he represents a pillar of western post enlightenment democratic society which is a the the right to publish to publish and be damned to have that right ok that is essential and we have still we finish on that very excellent point thank you very much that's all the time we have gentlemen many thanks to my guests in washington and in plymouth and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. you next time and remember.

donald trump firing doubts of a meeting with vladimir putin doesn't seem like a big deal given the already poor state of affairs between the two countries to the manner in which it was canceled all over twitter may sting the kremlin more than the cancellation itself is the mythical trump truth in a bromance finally over. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell the same stories. were going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either they're already several generations of them so i just got

this memo from the circulated branches off that says we're going to attack and destroy the government and seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with their money others with their lives if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war and surely we can risk some just come for more and easiness for us. joining me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. the russian president said turks the practice of unilateral sanctions calling them fundamentally flawed offers a system to promote international relations.