Assange court case to resume after COVID-19 false alarm

LONDON (AP) — The London court hearing on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition from Britain to the United States is set to resume after a COVID-19 test on one of the participating lawyers came back negative, WikiLeaks said Friday,

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered the proceedings adjourned Thursday while a lawyer representing the U.S. government was tested for the coronavirus.

At this point there was a break. James Lewis QC (prosecuting) used it forcefully to complain to Baraitser (judge) about the four hour limit set on his cross-examination of Eric Lewis (witness). He said that so far he had only got through one and a half pages of his questions, and that Eric Lewis refused to give yes or no answers but instead insisted on giving lengthy explanations. James Lewis QC was plainly extremely needled by Eric Lewis’ explanations of “unlimited visiting time” and “no solitary confinement”. He complained that Baraitser was “failing to control the witness”.

It was plain that James Lewis’ real aim was not to get more time, but to get Baraitser to curtail Eric Lewis’s inconvenient answers. It is of course amazing that he was complaining about four hours when the defence had been limited to half an hour and had not even been permitted to get to the latest superseding indictment.

Baraitser, to her credit, replied that it was not for her to control the witness, who must be free to give his evidence so long as it was relevant, which it was. It was a question of fairness not of control. James Lewis was asking open or general questions.

James Lewis responded that the witness refused to give binary answers. Therefore his cross examination must be longer than four hours. He became very heated and told Baraitser that never in his entire career had he been subject to a guillotine on cross examination, and that this “would not happen in a real court”. He very definitely said that. “This would not happen in a real court”. I have of course been arguing all along that this is not a genuine process. I did not expect to hear that from James Lewis QC, though I think his intention was just to bully Baraitser, which was confirmed by Lewis going on to state he had never heard of such a guillotine in his capacity of “High Court Judge”. I find that Lewis is listed as “deputy high court judge”, which I think is like being 12th man at cricket, or Gareth Bale.

The gloves were off on Tuesday as the US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified information, citing the Rosen case. Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers supreme court judgement on the New York Times only referred to pre-publication injunction and specifically did not preclude prosecution under the Espionage Act. The US Government even surmised in court that such an Espionage Act prosecution of the New York Times may have been successful.

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm So I'm thinking...what good did it do?

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm Well it helped get Trump elected.

Phnom Poon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:22 pm

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm So I'm thinking...what good did it do?

exactly
dust to dust . . .

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm Well it helped get Trump elected.

just like winston churchill caused ww2
the stubborn, idealistic fool

i forgot, where's the 'mocking sarcasm' emoji?

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm So I'm thinking...what good did it do? All that Wikileaks BS, which most of us never bothered to read because it was like 10,000 pages of stuff we didn't care too much about, but which was lapped up by all the deep state conspiracy nuts around the world, whatvwas the point? Well it helped get Trump elected. Hardly a plus. And it caused problems for Western intelligence agencies :
""They embarrass governments with which the US co-operates," Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the leaks on the BBC's World Today programme.

"At the very least, they will make governments like Pakistan and Yemen and others, which are collaborating with the US in the battle against terrorism, more reluctant to co-operate.

"It's harming some of the vital activities that the US government, the UK government or others engage in, which are protecting us from terrorism ".

Now I am no expert but does the negative outweigh the positive? And should most people going about their daily lives give a shit? Maybe the truth is that Assange is a narcissistic wanker with a Messiah complex. Maybe not. Yawn. Boring.

Clemen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:46 pm

lagrange wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:06 pm So I'm thinking...what good did it do? All that Wikileaks BS, which most of us never bothered to read because it was like 10,000 pages of stuff we didn't care too much about, but which was lapped up by all the deep state conspiracy nuts around the world, whatvwas the point? Well it helped get Trump elected. Hardly a plus. And it caused problems for Western intelligence agencies :
""They embarrass governments with which the US co-operates," Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the leaks on the BBC's World Today programme.

"At the very least, they will make governments like Pakistan and Yemen and others, which are collaborating with the US in the battle against terrorism, more reluctant to co-operate.

"It's harming some of the vital activities that the US government, the UK government or others engage in, which are protecting us from terrorism ".

Now I am no expert but does the negative outweigh the positive? And should most people going about their daily lives give a shit? Maybe the truth is that Assange is a narcissistic wanker with a Messiah complex. Maybe not. Yawn. Boring.

Because things like extrajudicial killings should not be tolerated in a civilized society. Or illegal surveillance programs, or destabilizing legitimate governments, and on and on. Ad nauseum