hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things were considered i'm peter lavelle in london julian assange and you're standing trial on whether he will be extradited to the u.s. to face espionage charges the stakes could not be higher songes living even life is on the line freedom of speech is also on trial though you wouldn't know that from the mainstream media. cross talking julian assange i'm joined by my guest in london joe lauria he's the editor in chief of consortium news dot com we also have taylor she is an independent journalist and co-founder of action for a stone age and we're joined by alexander make your us he is a writer and legal affairs as well as editor in chief of the duran dot com or across the uk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i

always appreciate it let's go to the the legal part of this story here we'll go to alexander me curious alex i mean the mainstream media when it does report the trial it seems to me there's an enormous amount of mission being played out here. in europe you have a legal mind you have a legal legal experience is he getting a fair trial go ahead i'll. have to say there are certain aspects of the trial which do cause me a great deal of money on don't want to go into the. details too far but firstly i have genuine concerns about the physical layout of the courtroom the fact that he is kept kept behind a glass barrier he's been complaining that this is limited he's contacts with his lawyers there is incidentally case little which says the physical layout. to the

court room can have bearing on whether a trial is fair or not so for our all or his protests about that have been disregarded but beyond this i am becoming worried by the trend of some of the legal arguments in the very interesting lee the prosecution seems to have accepted i should say the crown seems have accepted that the things that he has been charged with are political offenses but the argument now seems to be that that isn't relevant at all in extraditing him because the u.k. extradition act of 2003 doesn't say that people can't be extradited on police for political offenses even though there has always been well understood well how and even though the extradition treaty with the united states seems to. get and that does worry me that worries me a great deal well it should worry us all because julian assange is

a journalist ok i mean the way he's being treated me go to jail or here also in london the way he's being treated here is if he said terrorists i mean the the layout is there's alexander macarius just told us i mean this is treating him as if he's a danger to society in themselves there is no evidence in his past to to prove that they have this justified whatsoever he is being treated like a terrorist because he's a political prisoner and there's no 2 ways about it go ahead taylor. yes you're exactly right peter in fact we know that julian assange has been in london belmarsh prison which is often referred to as the u.k.'s pantani bay and we also learned earlier that in fact julian assange she has been placed in 5 holding cells he's been handcuffed frequently and i believe that his case files have been confiscated at the end of the day and his attorney edward fitzgerald has argued that in fact that impairs his right to a fair trial 4 we also have learned that while he was staying in the ecuadorian

embassy in london that this spanish security firm you see global was actually spying on him in spying on his visitors in particular journalists especially those who were russian or american so that even infringes on his rights to attorney client privilege as well you know joe i mean considering how he's being treated during this trial and of course the the the information that has come out that he was spied on when he was in the ecuadorian embassy i mean he really must really scare the daylights out of the establishment. the way he's being treated proves that i mean it is sense he is probably the most dangerous man in the world and they want to punish him for this go ahead joe. it was certainly not dangerous in a violent sense and that's the way he's being treated you have to wonder why they're doing this to him why he's in that cage why the day on monday this week he was strip searched twice and he was in 11 different times were handcuffed why are

they doing this and it's just who bursts it's power it's almost a sadistic to show that they're in charge they can do whatever they want with him and that's an extremely disturbing as particularly the word tele just mentioned about the lawyers i mean you have the prosecuting government has eavesdropped on the defense preparations for this case why you buy that sponge company is selling to the cia all of this that or so that would be thrown out of any case a mediately this is not in the. case the arguments i was in the court the arguments by the government by the u.s. government and their british lawyer are just they're ridiculous in some respects it's as if they didn't feel like they needed to make any kind of serious argument i mean on the on the on the date on tuesday. a son his lawyer has demolished this idea that tried to help chelsea manning hack into a government computer 1st chelsea and legal access to that a top secret 2nd the he didn't even need a password what he was doing is trying to help it download video games and movies

and music videos because it's forbidden on army computers it's upset they demolished that and what did the government lawyer say james lewis he said that that was a straw man argument i mean it's not a straw man argument because it wasn't a false argument it's the problem is the judge is being clearly biased against assad we expected that going in and we've seen many signs about that as well and the issue about whether it's political or not is key and again as alexander point out the actors are going to be the actor the treaty that's going to be followed that's a key question right now yeah you know i think you know a lot of us that have followed this this tragic story here is that it seems to me from people that are knowledgeable knowledgeable about the american legal system that it seems almost impossible julian assange could get a fair trial in the united states even to the point where it would actually be a secret trial because it would have to do with national security and espionage i

mean how in the world can you call that justice go ahead alex what will you come to and i'm pretty sure that this is going to be something that is going to be discussed extensively over the course of the of the hearing we haven't reached this point yet about whether julian assange can expect a fair trial in the united states the disproportionate sentence he would face a whole range sc if he was sent there. and i think this is absolutely central to this whole issue because it makes the whole thing to me look stream leave indictive given that as i have said already the crown has accepted the political chill juice which should been brought against him are i'm very disturbed about this argument but of the worry that the fact that his political charges some important because the act doesn't mention political charges the extradition treaty yes

written on the united states explicitly. extra johnson people who are facing political charges and it seems to me that to disregard that is to say that the court can go to the norms what the british government but britain to do in a treaty an international treaty integrate with the united states that doesn't make any kind of logical sense in me and all you know taylor is that not only is this a travesty of justice in the case of julian assange but it is it is going to severely damage the opinion people have of the british legal system because just as joe's pointed out an hour i've been reading accounts of people that have been in the court it looks like this is all pro forma i mean everyone's yawning i mean can't we get this over with because it is susan has already been made and they're doing this for public consumption for those that will even reported go ahead. yes

you're exactly right it seems that this particular has been citing in favor of the prosecution we saw that with previous hearings that took place last year at the end of last year in particular now you do bring up a good point about julian potentially receiving a fair trial in the united states unfortunately that is not at all the case because he will be tried in the u.s. district eastern district court of virginia which is known as the espionage court and i believe that any. but he has been tried in that court for a similar offenses join us anja national security case they have all been tried and convicted in this particular court and much of the evidence in this case the jury would not even be able to hear and if you have jury members seeing and hearing that they cannot even be provided with evidence that's really prejudicial to the defendant so i think that all rule of law in this case has been really disregarded but i am hopeful that the judge will side on the facts of this case and the facts

so far i believe have been overwhelmingly in favor of the defense you know joe in a broader picture if we look at what was happening to julian and and then we have roger stone it seems like the establishment and elements of the deep state want to prove they want to codified the russian hoax because they'll say look we got this conviction we got this conviction. and they reinvented the hoax the hoax is back in vogue again here i mean you know it's as if the report didn't matter doesn't matter push it aside we're going to prove to you that this conspiracy actually exists when there is not. the evidence to prove it whatsoever go ahead joe. you know ironically the prosecution argued on thursday that assad would have had to try to change the government in the us for it to have been a political offense and that's of course what that's of course what the most the us

assigns critics say that he truly brought trump in he tried to stop who recruited rather than he published what he got and can't publish what he didn't get on trump that this was a journalistic decision and that he wasn't necessarily so so you're right they are trying to mix in 2016 they want to get a song for that they're blaming him for that they're blaming everyone except hillary clinton for a loss of course and to try to suck that into sanjian to that russia gate story at this point when he's not been charged on anything other than what happened in 2010 under the espionage act and simply for possessing and then disseminating classified material which no one of the journals has ever been prosecuted for under the espionage act and us the obama administration wouldn't do it the trumpet ministration as they crossed that red line that's what this is about but it's going to be construed us as having something to do with the 2016 election you know that's part of the done the descent from mission campaign that was launched in march of 2008 by the pentagon and cyber counter chaldeans program and they said in

a 32 page report that ironically was leaked to rekey leaks that destroying the trust look around we can weeks is the aim and to have reputational damage inflicted on a son so that for 12 years now there been lies and smears and that's one reason this case cannot be a tried fairly why the government is being very cavalier about their case they not really making anything because they think i've got it in the bag very cavalier i wouldn't let it go to a hard break here we're going to go to a short break and out about short break we'll continue our discussion on julius on stage with already. live live.

live. live live. live. live. live. live . live. live. oh. please.

please. please. and a very warm welcome to you you're watching us inside us. welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing julian assange.

ok let's go back to alexander in london you know alex is really interesting when joe had to say before we went to the break because the establishment and establishment journalists that are actually not journalists they're just client pawns for power and to disgrace what they've done to journalism but you know you know we can make has always been seen as trying to undermine the establishment because he exposed as their corruption in their lives and but you know the interesting thing by the by. prosecuting julian assange and wiki leaks as an extension they're actually undermining themselves i mean it's actually they are the ones that are undermining the public faith in their institutions in the in the political elite here and they do they have complete disregard for for the rule of law in my opinion and they don't care what the public's perception of them are because they don't really have much respect for the electorate and people in general i mean they can get away with anything go ahead alex well they did and i

have to say i completely agree with what you say about the media in this situation the media collectively be extremely concerned about this trial because it goes directly to the homes of what investigative reporters are supposed to do they're supposed to you know get information from sources and he thinks in the public interest publish it and that's what judas interestedly to be very clear about this and he was doing it in kilmore. ration with a major new space exactly what old and yet it's been so well previous you know you have a few month old words of support for him from a few journalists in the mainstream media but there's been nothing nothing that remotely is proportionate to the gravity of the situation that we see in the courtroom and if you're talking about the proceedings themselves there's been an

almost total silence in britain even reporting that little i'm discussing them so even a storm issues me that this animus against. coming from establishment media seems to go beyond that you know seems to trump if you like their own self interests they don't want to be willing to sacrifice their own profession or the standards of their own profession in order to basically punish this man and obviously one has to ask why and it does seem to me increasingly it's becoming clear that establishment media and the political establishment are now become so intertwined they're one thing they are essentially the one thing yeah they are the ones an extension of the other that's really quite obvious on so many different levels on so many different topics you know taylor i remember during the 2016 presidential election in the united states everybody was captivated by week you

exhibit donald trump that i love wiki leaks ok i mean it's amazing how they have abandoned him because you know what what he did they don't do any more and i and i think that you know they do know that they're being shamed here because from what i've read and i've been following where we could week since its inception it's never released anything that wasn't after antic ok i mean how many new cable stations newspapers magazines websites put out fake news all the. time now one skin you painted on the weiqi leaks that wants all right so i mean it seems to me the way they they see that. by the way they attack him is that somehow they can redeem themselves as being real journalist but that's child's play doesn't make any sense go ahead taylor. yes you're exactly right in fact wiki leaks has a 100 percent accuracy rate in its reporting i cannot think of any other corporate media outlet that can say that and have that record it seems to me that many people

many journalists in the corporate media in the mainstream media do not want to associate themselves with joining a size they do not view him as a journalist for some reason and i think we could really say that the reason for that is because of a very effective dissin for mation campaign attacking his character at tacking wiki leaks and its staff members but it's always important to remember as well that wiki leaks has done a lot to protect sources and political dissidents and whistleblowers and an extension of wiki leaks of course is the courage foundation which helps those who are in some legal trouble who have the courage to actually blow the whistle on their corrupt governments and blow the whistle on these intelligence agencies which abuse their power and joined us on his attorney we're not a who knows him personally of course and considers him a friend said that this is someone of a high moral integrity and it is very much the case that julian assigned having

received that information from chelsea manning for him to just sit on that information and not actually expose it to the public would be in fact that immoral thing to do in this case so he acted appropriately by showcasing this to the world in highlighting these u.s. war crimes you know you know joe the whole thing is that when the media does focus on julian assange in what he's going through right now they don't really talk about what we expose but they talk about how the information was cured ok and if you're a publisher if you're an editor and you've got someone you get a milk person for all it's worth because that's exactly what you do ok and now but no i mean ever since to reproduce the. nails you know you know the better stolen. c.n.n. try to convince you not to read it because it's illegal but we'll do it for you would remember that chris cuomo nonsense ok no but it is

a state that you know they don't want to do when they look at process but they will never talk about the content of it ok or all that's that make it and i hope it you know it but i have mean there's so much of that's done i read just a small percentage of it is so i open it it's amazing you get it you actually can see into the cold heart of the elite and how they calculate. it it's really quite amazing you know and we have julian of songe to thank for that and that's why he's being punished because we got to see inside that cold soul go ahead joe. yes i have a good making an excellent point and i want to be what alex said previously that i'm also astonished perhaps i shouldn't be that there's not there's not been any coverage of this really the trial of this early this young century being compared to the dreyfus affair what's at stake here is how the west defines itself are we really do well the u.s. and britain who are we really democracies that can tolerate the revelation of

government wrongdoing on that scale or our knowledge devolving into an aggressive form of what i have to say is to tell a tear in is when you crush dissent that's what's on trial here and that the new york times in the washington post apparently of not written one word about this trial on the b.b.c. i can't find anything i just says just astonishing and that's part of the omission that's what the corporate media does they omit you never hear them talking about what the u.s. has done since the end of the 2nd world war the many millions of people that were killed that produces no shame or guilt in the u.s. it's not even reported it's just buried and because of that that hole was filled by one journalist julian the sun and that's why they have to get him to shut him up to put that again under the under the carpet so the public doesn't know the. exactly the massive crimes that western government to lead by the us has done and this is why this is so important to do or nord is just part of that system of omitting

uncomfortable incriminating information against western governments and this is why this trial is so damned important and it needs to be covered well go back to alexander because that's exactly why we're doing this program and i want to be very clear with everyone i met every single person on this panel in london this week at an event. defending julian assange and getting the word out because i felt it was so important to go there because the media is committing omissions here and i had to go there and i made a public stand and i hope people watching this program will also make a public stand because it's time to be counted go ahead alex well absolutely and i'm glad joe brought up the dreyfus affair because of course the dreyfus affair in france in the 18 eighties and $890.00 s. was also a case was to find for the french people what kind of a society they wanted to be were they a constitutional democratic republic or were they

a society in which powerful people in the butt you know in the background could control who was designed to be guilty and who was not who would be packed off to devil's island and who would not be and they took a stand and respond enormous pressures and enormous battles in the end they won for britain this is our greatest affair and i think that far too few people in clinton understand this and i was at that same event that you were peter and which joe was in which to you know was and i'm glad to say that there was some people from britain who do understand this and did make that stand and i think we should all continue to do so you know. taylor peter can i interject please. don't jump in that's the point of the others but i just i just want to yeah i just want to make this point that this is a time for britain to stand up and show backbone against us particularly when the

us is refusing to extradite here to the us a woman the wife of a dismount a former cia agent who killed this boy and he fled to the u.s. the u.s. won't give that woman back to britain but they want to give him a song just in time for britain to show its independence that's what it's independence from you know west you know taylor so many people don't understand why did we come into being because the mainstream media wouldn't do their job ok and what i worry about what i worry about after this tragic event all these tragic events are being played out is that something else like leaks might come along but they won't be accountable they won't be honest it will be more. it'll be more underground dark web stuff ok and i think that they're going to one day these people are going to miss what the or regret what they've been doing here because at least weekly leaks had integrity certainly a lot of red faces around the world when they release things but you know

nonetheless it played up to a very high standard others may not do that 40 seconds go to you tailor last part of the program. yes and actually in the early days of wiki leaks julian assigned and other staff members worked very closely with members of the mainstream media and the corporate media civically the guardian and to this day wiki leaks has many partners around the world and those are outlets and organizations that are part of the corporate media i want to say that julian assange has absolutely changed the media landscape there are other corporate media organizations who have actually adopted certain aspects of wiki leaks as an organization into their own practices and again like i said earlier wiki leaks has a 100 percent accuracy rate and just to reiterate what joe was saying earlier it is . now the time for the u.k. to stand up to the united states in prevent us extradition is unlawful it is an assault on our 1st amendment and that is something that is key to us worldwide and

i know that they're saying that the 1st amendment does not apply to foreign nationals there are many legal experts out there who disagree i'm sure alec's disagrees with that interpretation but it's really time to show support for drilling aside and to also correct this information that has been told about how well said it but i'm afraid don't hold your breath very pessimistic you many thanks to my guest in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember crosstalk. the russian state television propaganda machine propaganda outlet propaganda tools we are in an information war.

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become a battleground in the u.s. in vermont people are demanding the shutdown of a local plant for my yankee is right now my focus because it's a very dangerous oh no care power plant the owner is attempting to run the reactor beyond its operational limit this case just sort of puts a magnifying glass on where's the power in this country where's it going is it moving more towards corporate interests or is it more in the idea of a traditional for just a. power lie with the people this case demonstrates that struggle in the very real ways our struggle on o.t. .

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