11. Julian Assange
Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He gained international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from Chelsea Manning, including Hillary Clinton texts, Podesta, Pizza gate files, footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad and U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Assange was incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh in London from April 2019 to June 2024, as the U.S. government's extradition effort was contested in the UK courts. In 2024, following a High Court ruling that granted Assange a full appeal to extradition, Assange and his lawyers negotiated a deal with the DOJ
Assange was arrested and incarcerated in HM Prison in April 2019 in London, where he had sought asylum to avoid extradition to the U.S. He was released in 2024 after agreeing to a plea deal with U.S. authorities, pleading guilty to one criminal charge related to obtaining and disclosing national defense information. He has since returned to Australia.
Many hoped that President Trump would pardon Assange in 2020. Tucker and others suggest that Mike Pompeo criminally put a hit on Assange and was the reason Trump did not pardon him.
Julian Assange says he was freed after years of incarceration because he "pled guilty to journalism".
"I am not free today because the system worked," the Australian WikiLeaks founder said during an address to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday — his first public remarks since he was released from prison.
He has been giving evidence to its Parliamentary Assembly, which includes parliamentarians from 46 European countries, on his detention and conviction and their effects on human rights.
Julian Assange makes first public address since release from prison
Why They Hate Ed Snowden & Julian Assange (Tucker)