The Washington Post is reporting this morning that secret charges against Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange have been filed. The long running grand jury started in 2010 according to documents.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal by the US Justice Department with unspecified crimes, prosecutors apparently inadvertently revealed in a recent court filing in an unrelated case.
The disclosure (see below), made in August by Assistant US Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer, urges the Eastern District Court of Virginia to keep the matter sealed, writing that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.”
Dwyer went on to write that the charges would “need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.”
Washington Post confirms secret charges against WikiLeaks publisher @JulianAssange. The long running grand jury into WikiLeaks started in April 2010 after the publication of a video revealing the slaying of two Reuters journalists in Iraq https://t.co/k4KNam3Uaq
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 16, 2018
Wikileaks first broke the documents about 12 hours ago, and you can see in the cut and paste effort from the Department of Justice, some things were missed in this case in Eastern Virginia.
SCOOP: US Department of Justice "accidentally" reveals existence of sealed charges (or a draft for them) against WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange in apparent cut-and-paste error in an unrelated case also at the Eastern District of Virginia. https://t.co/wrjlAbXk5Z pic.twitter.com/4UlB0c1SAX
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 16, 2018
Did the US Department of Justice just accidentally reveal that it has charged WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange, in a secret charges request it filed in another case at the Eastern District of Virginia, with a cut-and-paste error? https://t.co/XCpean1yof pic.twitter.com/dZ6JjAFGlk
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 16, 2018