The Chris Hedges Report Show with Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, the only international reporter who worked on the entirety of the WikiLeaks secret trove of leaked documents.

TRANSCRIPT

The following is a rush transcription and may contain errors. An updated version will be made available as soon as possible.  [I have abridged the text considerably; click on title for its entirety.  –D]

Chris Hedges:

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have carried out the most important investigative journalism of our generation, revealing to the public the inner workings of power through the release of luminous documents. .  . . .

But talk a little bit about the global impact these revelations had.

Stefania Maurizi:

Well, of course, for the first time, if you are referring to the Afghan war logs, Iraq war logs, or the cables, all these files allowed for the first time to access to this information which was secret. So I mean, there was no way to obtain this information unless you got a copy after 25 years, 30 years, maybe 40 years when no one care anymore. Maybe the historians, the professional historians, care at that point, but it was no longer relevant for the public opinion to take informed decisions, of course.

So that was the explosive part of this secret documentation. For the first time, we got access to secret information about how the Afghan war work, about the Iraq war, about the US diplomacy and their deals, their pressure, the political pressure, their crimes behind the scene. And we could get access as facts were still very relevant, not after 20 or 30 years or 40 years. And we could get access without the reductions. Because when you require request these documents using freedom of information. You often got completely redacted documents to an extent that they are useless. As a journalist or as a citizen, they have little use. So this information was really game changing, really allowed to take the public opinion, the decision they need. The information they need to take informed decision as citizens.

Chris Hedges:

I want to ask you about the 706,910 secret files of the Afghan wars. Before I do, just briefly tell us the importance of WikiLeaks in the Arab Spring and Tunisia and the importance of WikiLeaks in terms of Haiti. Those are two good examples of the impact WikiLeaks had.

Stefania Maurizi:

Yes, of course. I mean, when it comes to the WikiLeaks cables, for the first time, the citizens of these countries were information restricted, are unavailable. They could access the French assessment about their regimes by the US diplomacy. And while publicly the US diplomacy was conducting diplomacy as business as usual, but in the secrecy of their correspondence, they were absolutely not diplomatic at all about these regimes. So for the first time, this population could look at the reality of the regime and were vindicated. And this made them to react to this kind of information and to try to oppose their regime, to try to change their regime. And this is why Amnesty International has credited WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks cables with having an important role in the Arab Spring in these countries, of course.

Chris Hedges:

And Haiti, because it also exposed US interference in Haiti. I mean-

Stefania Maurizi:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Hedges:

I mean, a very concerted effort on the part of the US government to crush the labor movement, to break the movement to raise the minimum wage because they are all those sweatshops-
Stefania Maurizi:  Of course.
Chris Hedges:  Which are owned by US corporations. 
Stefania Maurizi:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And I mean, even if in the case of other countries, they didn’t unleash a revolution, they still unleash real important political awareness about the political interference, about the kind of crimes exposed by these documents, which could not be denied at this point, the kind of human rights violations, the kind of political pressure to grant impunity, for example, to the CIA. In the WikiLeaks cables, we got evidence, indisputable evidence, about political pressure on Italian authorities to grant impunity to the CIA agents responsible for the extraordinary rendition of Abu Amar. And of course, we could imagine that kind of political pressure. We could imagine that kind of political interference. Of course we could. But it is one matter to imagine. It is another matter to get evidence and to get their names and to get the conversation. That’s why these documents are important. And in fact, no one denied. No one even tried to file a libel case and say, “This is not true.”. . . . [Omitted is her account of the prosecution of CIA agents for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan, reported by Wikileaks documents.].

As a result, none of these people [CIA agents] ended up in prison. None of these people basically have spent a single day in prison. And without the WikiLeaks documents, as I said, we could have imagined, but we could never have obtained the evidence, the solid evidence, the names, what they had discussed. And these cables are tremendously important to obtain this evidence of political pressure to grant impunity to the CIA.

Chris Hedges:

Let’s talk about the Afghan war logs and the Iraq War logs. The Iraq War logs has 391,832 secret files. Afghan war logs, 76,910 secret files. What did they reveal?

Stefania Maurizi:

They’re amazing document. Let me say, I worked so much on these documents. They are reports from the field, from the theater of war authored by the soldiers who were there. And basically, they provide a snapshot of the war. Whatever happened on the theater of war from January 2004 to December 2009. So six years of war described without any filter, without any propaganda. So at that point, you could see the war as it is on the entire theater of war and you could compare what the propaganda machine was telling to the public and what was really happening. And that’s the real value of this document. The value, of course, is what they reveal. The number of civilians, innocent civilians who were killed and the secret units like Taskforce 373. But the value here is that, for the first time, we could see these wars as they were as they were happening. Not after 30 years, after 40 years.

And never before, with the exception of the Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsworth, never before it had been possible to look at the war as it is ongoing and having this access to secret information about what was going on. These are tremendously important document, and to this day, they remain the only source. If you take the Afghan war logs, for example, they remain the only public source about the killing, extra judicial killing. And the only source about the innocent civilians kill before 2007.   [Most of the interview follows, don’t miss it.  –Dick]

11:57 AM (3 hours ago)

Assange Attorneys and Journalists Sue the CIA Over Spying

AUGUST 18, 2022 By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/18/assange_attorneys_and_journalists_sue_the

“Journalists are allowed to request documents that have been stolen and to publish those documents.” So wrote U.S. federal Judge John Koeltl in a 2019 opinion dismissing a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and others. Assange published documents on the Wikileaks website in the very manner the judge described. Despite this, Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in Britain’s maximum security Belmarsh prison for over three years. Before that, he spent seven years living in the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum as he faced mounting persecution from the U.S. government for his role in exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. is seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom to face espionage and conspiracy charges and up to 175 years in prison. Assange’s legal team is appealing the U.K.’s approval of the extradition request. Meanwhile, a new case related to Wikileaks is before Judge Koeltl: journalists and several of Assange’s attorneys have sued the Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, alleging the CIA spied on them when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, recording conversations and secretly copying their phones and laptops.

“I’m a New York lawyer,” Deborah Hrbek, an attorney who met with Assange at the embassy several times, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. “I have the right to assume that the U.S. government is not listening to my private and privileged conversations with my clients, and that information about other clients and cases I may have on my phone or laptop are secure from illegal government intrusion. This is not just a violation of our constitutional rights. This is an outrage.”

CIA spying on Julian Assange and his visitors became public through a Spanish court case against a company, UC Global, and its director, David Morales. UC Global was hired by Ecuador in 2012 to provide security for its embassy in London. The CIA, the new lawsuit alleges, recruited UC Global in January 2017, with the help of the late casino billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, when Morales was at a gun convention in Las Vegas. Morales returned to Spain and, according to the lawsuit, told his employees that “the company would now be operating ‘in the big league’ and for the ‘dark side’ with the CIA.”

Donald Trump had been a big fan of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign, after the site published thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle. “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said in a speech in October. Then, in March, 2017, Wikileaks published “Vault 7,” leaked CIA information that the agency itself later admitted was “the largest data loss in CIA history.”

Shortly after the first tranche of Vault 7 documents was published, Mike Pompeo blasted Wikileaks in his first public speech as Trump’s new CIA Director:

“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service…It overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service.”

Last year, Yahoo News exposed a 2017 CIA plot to kidnap and possibly kill Julian Assange while in the Ecuadorian embassy. Yahoo reported that the plot was discussed “at the highest levels of the Trump administration.”

Plots to assassinate a publisher, warrantless surveillance of private conversations and secret duplication of attorneys’ and journalists’ private electronic devices all echo the notoriously criminal conduct of the Nixon administration in the early 1970s.

Back then, the target was whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who leaked The Pentagon Papers, a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that detailed the extent to which successive U.S. administrations lied to the public about the war. Dan Ellsberg was charged with espionage and faced life in prison.

President Nixon’s obsession with leaks led him to order the burglary of Ellberg’s psychiatrist’s office, starting the chain of events that led to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation. When the presiding judge in Ellsberg’s trial learned of the government’s illegal conduct, he dismissed the case.

Fifty years later, First Amendment protections for publishers of government secrets, illegal CIA spying and more are before a federal judge again. Judge John Koeltl, as a young lawyer, served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Now presiding over this case, filed by journalists and Assange’s attorneys, expect more CIA criminality to come to light. President Biden and his Justice Department should immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange.

CONTENTS: WIKILEAKS/ASSANGE NEWSLETTER #16, August 15, 2021
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/08/omni-wikileaksassange-newsletter-16.html   

Introduction by Janine Jackson Interviewing Chip Gibbons

Comparison: Daniel Hale to Be Sentenced July 27, 2021 under Espionage Act

And Nazi Courts
And British Justice
Corporate Media Underreports Lying by Gov. Witness
Marion Tichenor’s Letter Supporting Assange and Whistleblowers
Corporate Media Lying by Omission
6 BOOKS ON OR BY ASSANGE FROM OR BOOKS
Assange Still in Jail
Julian Is Suffering: His Family in US: Amy Goodman Interviews Assange’s Father and Brother
Common Dreams Interviews Father and Brother
John Pilger, “The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange”

END ASSANGE/WIKILEAKS ANTHOLOGY #17