I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthorton show.
Hey guys, on the line, I've got Bronco Marchteach.
That's how he told me to say it.
It's at jacobinmag.com.
He wrote this great piece.
Oh, you know what?
Let me introduce him better than that.
He wrote the book, Yesterday's Man, Attacking Joe Biden from the Left.
Very good work.
Interesting work.
Did you know that the first thing Joe Biden did when he got elected to the U.S. Senate was oppose Nixon's hasty and precipitous withdrawal from Vietnam?
Ha!
I love that.
That's just great.
And he wrote this really important article, which I demand that you read and share with your friends.
The Julian Assange media blackout must end.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Bronco?
Hey, great Scott.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me on.
Really happy to have you here.
Is it Branco or Bronco?
I say Bronco.
It's Bronco, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, if you want me to go, I could go full Serbian on you and really give you the proper Serb.
Go ahead.
Start with the proper and then tell me how I should say it.
You know, I mean, if you were a Serb, you'd say Bronco, but, you know, I anglicize it a little bit.
So I say Bronco.
You know, you round out the O, but you wouldn't normally do that in Serbian unless it was a U at the end of the word.
I gotcha.
Well, I got a thing to learn, too, maybe.
This is why you had me on, right?
So we can talk about Serbian language and names, right?
The beginning of my lessons.
Yeah.
I'll get right on that babble fish.
Yeah.
No, listen, you write great stuff, but tech and the evil government that I also hate.
So that's why I have you on.
And you wrote this great thing about Julian Assange being locked in prison and the court process that is still being used against him in England there under his indictment in America under the Espionage Act.
And that was that was the sound of me rolling my eyes and shaking my head.
And also the yeah, the media blackout, just the absolute refusal, almost absolute refusal of the, you know, New York and D.C. media to cover the latest developments in this story that don't make the case look too good.
So go ahead.
I guess, you know, I had the reporter on the show from the Stundin about the report about Siggi, the rat that informed on WikiLeaks and all his admissions that his claims were not true.
So I guess, you know, for people who miss that, can you rehash that story for us real quick and then we'll go through the media blackout here?
Yeah, sure.
So last year, the U.S. made this updated indictment in the Assange case where basically they wanted to kind of bolster the argument that he was not someone deserving of press freedoms, of First Amendment protections, that he was not a publisher or journalist or anything like that, but that he was rather a criminal.
And so to try and give that argument more weight, they included these accusations from this Icelandic guy, Sigurdur Thordarson, who made all these claims.
He said that Assange instructed him to hack Icelandic officials and members of parliament and to secretly record them, things like accessing a government database, hacking into a government database to look up something about Assange, and also that he was instructed to get in touch with these hacking groups and to sort of coordinate with them so they would hack and then they would release documents to WikiLeaks, all of which would create this impression that the government's been trying to make for years, which is that Assange is not just a publisher, he's actually actively involved in hacking operations and in instructing people to do a variety of illegal things.
What this latest report says from this Icelandic newspaper, Stundinn, is that Thordarson, and it's not clear why, why he felt the need to do this, but he admitted to the newspaper that all of these are either fabrications that I just listed to you or highly misleading versions of what happened.
So for example, the government database that I mentioned that Assange allegedly had instructed him to hack into so he could look up something about himself, it turns out actually Thordarson had a login to this database to begin with.
So he just used that.
He was not hacking, he was just using a login.
I imagine anyone who has a friend who has access to some sort of government services probably asked them, hey, do me a favor, can you look something up about me?
So that was that.
The other thing was the hackers, for instance.
Thordarson admits to the newspaper that he had never actually been instructed by WikiLeaks to do this.
He had sort of done it himself.
And there's an added irony here because one of those hackers ended up being a US government informant and we can talk about that maybe in more detail later on.
And then the other charge that he had told him to hack MPs and to secretly record them, that turns out to have been, according to Thordarson, completely made up.
That actually, I believe he had been leaked files and recordings of MPs that had been somehow obtained, but Assange had never said, go and do this thing, break the law and then give me something that I can release.
So that sort of gives you a bit of a sense of what has happened, why it's significant to the case.
And we'll see what that means going forward.
Yeah.
Now, so I think it was you who said, OK, well, the New York or pardon me, the Washington Post did cover it and I didn't count, but it was something like, you know, paragraph 35 into their story about it or something like that where they go through and they go, OK, well, and it was much later, you know, more than a week or something after the story had broken, I think, where they mentioned it.
But then they say, you know, these accusations were really just sort of background.
They're not part of the charges against Assange, and so it doesn't really make any difference.
What do you say to that?
Yeah.
Well, this is this is fascinating.
And it's a very good example of the way that the press works, you know, or can work if they want to quote Noam Chomsky, manufacture consent.
So originally last year, when the U.S. updated this indictment, the Washington Post gave Thordarson's charges, you know, a entire piece going into it.
I believe it was about 800 words.
I did the work.
It was around there.
And they, you know, went into what he alleged and they even got quotes and even in a rare bit of kind of editorializing within the article basically said, this is a this is a big deal.
This is really significant for the case.
That was, of course, when these allegations were not discredited and they were just sort of believed.
Suddenly, a year later, when we know that that these are completely made up, that the guy who made them up has admitted that he made them up.
Then you're right.
It gets buried in the halfway through a piece that's actually not about this.
It's about the the the the offer that was very kindly made to Assange by the Biden administration to put him in prison in Australia instead of in the U.S.
And they bury it halfway through the piece.
And as you say, they they they say, well, it doesn't really matter anyway.
Never bothering to correct the original story, not bothering to say why it's not important, given the fact that they had sort of raved about it the first time.
So, I mean, the fact is, it is important in the sense that this is a key part of the U.S. case, that Assange, again, is not a publisher, that he's an actual criminal.
You know, they're trying to say, look at what he's done in the past.
Look at his other actions.
Clearly, you know, there is there is more than just smoke here.
There is fire.
He has instructed people to do illegal things.
And so without that, I mean, you know, why if it wasn't that important?
Why would the Trump administration have gone to these lengths, worked with someone like Thordarson, who I mentioned as a criminal, was a rampant criminal, gave him this immunity deal, all this stuff.
Why would they have gone to trouble if it wasn't key to their case?
Well, and that story, too, where the FBI sets up a DDoS attack so that they can tell the Icelandic authorities that, hey, we're here to help protect you from this DDoS attack that we heard is going to happen to you.
And all this stuff we heard is happening to you.
I forgot exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All of these lengths to do this.
Yeah, exactly.
So one of the hackers that Thordarson got in touch with was, it turns out, a U.S. government or an FBI informant, rather.
And as you say, you know, I mean, we don't know if the U.S. instructed him.
I mean, we also don't know if they did that.
They very well could have.
But I mean, it would beg a belief that, at the very least, they were not aware that this guy was going to do a DDoS attack on an Icelandic institution.
And it's clear he was working, he had been a flipped, you know, informant for them long before that.
So it's essentially, you're right, there's no direct proof, but it's essentially unthinkable that Sabu would have done that without having been under the instruction of his FBI handlers to do so at that time.
Yeah, precisely.
Which means the U.S. is going after Assange, essentially because they're so outraged at this criminal hacking, this illegal hacking that he's instructing people to do, while in itself is either instructing or giving, you know, a wink and a nod or a thumbs up quietly to one of its own informants to do a massive cyber attack on the Icelandic government, and then going after Assange for it.
I mean, you know, I think, think about this for a second, and I think it really tells you that maybe this whole thing, this whole prosecution, or really persecution of Assange, isn't about the hacking.
It's about something else.
Yeah, of course.
It's revenge.
It's as simple as that.
I mean, he's, you know, I think they already wanted to, you know, do whatever they could to him from the Manning leak, but then he just kept making a matter and matter with the Vault 7 thing, and that was a huge story that never got much attention either, was that he was negotiating with the CIA that maybe we'll let you live, pal, if you don't release that Vault 7 stuff.
Maybe we can work out a deal, and before they were able to do it, Senator John Warner ratted to Comey somehow, somebody, one of Assange's lawyers or somebody made a bad decision to bring it up to him.
I forgot exactly how that happened, but Senator Warner found out about it and told Comey about it, and then the FBI intervened and scotched the CIA's negotiations with Assange that they were going to protect him for the Vault 7.
So I was expecting some CIA drone strikes on FBI headquarters after that.
I don't know how they got back at him for it, but they must have been pissed over that.
You know, I mean, because after all, the Manning leak was just secret level stuff.
They put it on the zipper net knowing that it was at a much higher risk to get leaked because they had decided to prioritize information sharing over hoarding, you know, for information at that level.
So as Robert Gates himself admitted, there was no damage done from that whatsoever.
All those accusations of blood on their hands against Assange and Manning were all, he said, overwrought.
Yeah.
See, and I wasn't even familiar with that CIA story.
So there you go.
I mean, that's fascinating.
And the problem for Assange is that he has pissed off everyone in the US political establishment.
I mean, he came in, he did the Iraq and the diplomatic cables and everything else, the Apache helicopter leak, all that stuff.
Pissed off conservative people and some pro-war hawks, essentially.
And also the entire kind of intelligence agencies, entire kind of national security establishment hated him because of that.
But then in 2016, when he released the DNC and the Clinton campaign emails, then he earned the wrath of all the liberal people and all the democratic voting people.
And I think you're right, the Vault 7 stuff, that kind of thing is what they're really going after him for.
But then there is this element of, on the liberal side, I think, a feeling of needing vengeance for what they perceive as his key role in putting Trump in the White House in 2016 and embarrassing Hillary Clinton and all this kind of stuff.
And in fact, you know, I can see if you follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter, you see where he's constantly correcting people who believe and accuse and claim that Assange is being prosecuted for helping the Russians hack and distribute the DNC leak, when that has nothing to do with the indictment at all.
The indictment is all about Manning and 2010 has nothing to do with 2016.
But for the average liberal Assange hater, close enough, right?
Just like me supporting the impeachment of Bill Clinton for anything.
I don't care.
Just get rid of the guy.
You know, that's how they are.
Yeah.
No, exactly.
And, you know, I mean, he ended up doing that.
I mean, as you say, people think that he's being prosecuted for that.
But I mean, if they didn't, I think they would like to see him suffer, even though the man has suffered enough.
I mean, imagine being stuck in an embassy inside for, I think it was 10 years.
I mean, people went crazy on the lockdowns, understandably, you know, all over the world under the pandemic.
And this is this is much worse and far, far longer.
So you can imagine, you know, I mean, I don't know how much more you have to put someone through as punishment.
I feel like at this point, if you want to send a message to any future whistleblowers, you've done it.
No one's going to want to follow in Assange's footsteps, unfortunately.
Right.
Yeah, boy, they sure have made an example out of him already.
And you know, this was part of how he didn't get extradited, was the judge said she was convinced that she was worried that under the absolutely inhumane conditions that American prisoners are held under, that he would find the opportunity to kill himself.
And I think she's correct.
I mean, he's now been in solitary confinement, I think, since since 2019 or so.
And in other words, he's going to talk about American barbarianism when she's ordering it right now.
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, it really tells you it speaks volumes about the US, you know, it's called the justice system that the UK, which is meant to be a U.S. ally, finds conditions here so appalling and monstrous and inhumane that they would actually that, you know, they agreed.
Oh, yeah.
Assange is definitely a criminal.
We definitely think he did terrible crimes and he should be extradited.
But we can't because you your presence is just so monstrous.
Yeah, I'll tell you what, it really is amazing.
It's like the way that we talk about it going, you know, a Turkish prison or something like that, like the toughest, deepest dungeon you could be buried in.
That's the way that people talk about American prisons like, oh, my God, that's like going to an American prison, a fate worse than death.
You know?
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think just to go back to that topic of kind of some of the anger towards Assange from the liberal side, I think that is part of the reason why he is that there is this blackout.
There is this reluctance to mention the story, because a lot of people in the press, you know, they have kind of they lean liberal for one.
They I think were universally appalled by Trump's election.
And you know, we saw pieces that came out in the wake of 2016 of reporters saying, you know, maybe I should never have covered these leaks that Assange put out because I was actually being weaponized by the Kremlin, you know, by doing my job, I was actually doing the bidding of of this this this rival power.
And so therefore, you know, if something like this happens again, we just shouldn't report on it.
And I think that's part of this.
We saw a similar thing happen, actually, in 2020, of course, with the Hunter Biden laptop with that was clearly what what a lot of people in the establishment press had decided that we're just simply not going to cover the story.
It's too damaging, potentially, to Biden at a crucial moment in the election, and we don't want Trump to win.
And frankly, I mean, I don't think that's what the role of the press should be.
That to me does exactly the kind of partisan thing that people have accused Assange of doing and said, well, he's not a journalist because he's, you know, he's he's anti Hillary Clinton or whatever.
You know, to me, that there's no distinction there.
Yes.
Seriously.
And in fact, like you couldn't parse it right.
He publishes a document that got leaked to him, but he doesn't write an introductory paragraph.
Is that the problem?
If it had an introductory paragraph, then it would be journalism.
Yeah.
And they say, you know, I mean, nobody ever says that, but I'm just making up stuff because what's the standard?
What's the difference between publishing the document itself and writing about the document and publishing the document at The New York Times, which happens from time to time, at least, you know?
Yeah.
One of the things is that they point to, I think, the WikiLeaks website or something.
They sort of have something that vaguely calls on people to to to, you know, hack and leak.
So it's basically soliciting, you know, it's saying, you know, we want stuff that is like secret level classification or higher, something along those lines.
And so that's supposed to be one of the things against Assange, you know, that he's actually asking for documents.
But the thing is, I mean, the amount of reporters who, for instance, Ken Klippenstein at The Intercept will regularly, when he posts a document that's been leaked to him, he'll say he'll put his number and he'll say, text me if you know any more about this.
Or if you have any documents similar to this, please send to me on Signal, gives his number.
There's no distinction there.
I mean, if you think Assange is a criminal for doing what he's doing, then you've got to put Ken Klippenstein and so many other reporters in jail who are soliciting, you know, secret information.
I mean, that is the job of a journalist.
Hold on just one second.
Be right back.
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I mean, if you have, if you're a journalist and you have a source in the government who's giving you documents, then of course, like every time you're going to say, can you give me some more?
What else you got?
Break into the safe at night.
Oh, you don't know the code?
Why don't you try to figure out the combination, man?
Why don't you steal a combination from the book and see if you can open the safe and get me even more good stuff, right?
And if you're not doing that, I mean, maybe just the moment doesn't call for it, but I mean, if you know your source that well, then of course you'd have to do that, right?
Anything less than that, you're not doing your job.
To say that, oh, now you're a co-leaker rather than still a recipient of the leak is just ridiculous semantics is all they're playing there.
For sure.
But it is, I think, having an effect.
I mean, if you read the ProPublica, you know, the big leak that was made to them from the IRS, people's tax records, and they did a piece kind of outlining their decision to publish this, how they did it, so on and so forth, and they make very, they're very careful to note there.
They say, you know, we didn't solicit this, we didn't ask for this, we didn't do anything, and this was just kind of plopped into our laps.
But the thing is, if they had, you know, I don't think there's anything illegal there.
A journalist is allowed to ask for documents or, you know, information.
That's part of the job of the free press.
But the fact that they feel like they have to make that distinction, I think, really shows that clearly cases like Assange's are having an impact, they're having some sort of chilling effect on the press that maybe we'll see play out more clearly in the future.
You know, I still wonder by what black magic they make every newspaper editor in America go along with these narratives, and not just go along with the narratives, but exclude contrary narratives to such a degree, like, is there not an article in the Denver Post where they talk about it, or the LA Times, or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or the Dallas Morning News, or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is anybody going to cover this at all if the New York Times doesn't tell you to?
Or you know what I mean?
Is it the Freemason handshake?
Or what do they do?
How do they prevent this story from getting out when it's the most important thing in the world?
I think it's a question of priorities.
And those editors' asses are on the line, too.
That's the real point, right?
This is their direct interest to keep publishing legal.
Yeah, you would think so.
But you know, I mean, I don't think there's any big conspiracy.
I think ultimately it's people, and they decide what they want to write about, what they think is important, and people who, you know, they don't have to have a conscious kind of bias.
I think all of us have biases that we're now aware of, and I think there's probably that case here.
You know, it's similar to the prosecution of Stephen Donziger by Chevron, which is an outrageous story.
And that has not been covered by the New York Times, even though it's an absolutely massive story with huge implications for the U.S. legal system, for just people's rights in the United States.
And they've completely ignored it so far.
Hey, do you have a good article about that?
I'll read it.
Well, you know, yeah, jacobinmag.com.
If you go in there, look up Stephen Donziger, you know, I think we have several interviews with him and a few pieces.
It's fascinating stuff.
You know, I've seen it referenced on Twitter from time to time, but I haven't looked into it, but I guess I should.
It is, you know, it'll blow you away.
I mean, it's a guy who won a settlement from Chevron for the indigenous people of, I believe, Ecuador, who had been, you know, had their land and water poisoned.
And Chevron basically decided to retaliate against him.
And he is essentially being prosecuted by the United States government.
But he's really being prosecuted by the United States government of Chevron.
You know, Chevron is colluding with the court to, they've kept him in house arrest for nearly two years now at this point, and he hasn't been convicted of anything.
It's not really clear what he'd be convicted of if he was.
The outrageousness of the story is bottomless.
I would advise everyone to have a read of it.
Yeah, man, that really sounds like something else.
I will do that.
Great.
Listen, I'm sorry I'm all out of time, but great talking to you again.
And thank you for sticking up for Assange and for all free speech and free press rights for the rest of us.
Even those dummies who don't care about it and don't know that they should.
Don't worry about it.
Thanks for having me on.
All right, you guys.
That is Branco Marchteach, Branco Marchteach, somewhere right around there.
And the article is The Julian Assange Media Blackout Must End.
It's at jacobinmag.com and check out his book about Joe Biden.
There's so much good stuff in there.
It's called Yesterday's Man.
The Scott Horton Show and Antiwar Radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com, antiwar.com, scotthorton.org and libertarianinstitute.org.
