{"id":484,"date":"2019-05-13T17:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T21:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/?p=484"},"modified":"2019-09-29T10:34:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T14:34:26","slug":"why-is-julian-assange-smiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/why-is-julian-assange-smiling\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Julian Assange Smiling?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here is a photo of Julian Assange after he was dragged from\nthe Ecuadorian embassy in London a few weeks ago:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AssangeSmiling.jpg\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Excuse me, but why is this man smiling? He is under\nindictment in the US for publishing the stolen emails of Hillary Clinton and\nJohn Podesta, and the UK has an extradition treaty with the US. It\u2019s a\nconvoluted story, but I choose to interpret the Assange saga this way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s attorneys filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Dec. 29, 2017, in the case Roy Cockrum vs. Donald J. Trump for President. Trump\u2019s attorneys said that the Trump campaign (and by inference anyone, including Julian Assange at WikiLeaks) had a right under the First Amendment to publish the DNC and John Podesta emails, even if the emails were stolen<\/em>. (See
http:\/\/www.kingpin.cc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/dcd-1.17-cv-01370-42-0.pdf<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Assange heard about this, he posted his famous tweet on December 31, 2017, showing a hash, and a video to a song called \u201cPaper Planes\u201d by M.I.A. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 Assange uses hashes to unlock and make public any information given to him by whistleblowers around the world, so this hash was recognizable to anyone who knows Assange. The lyrics of the Paper Planes song say, \u201cIf you catch me at the border I got visas in my name\u2026and\u2026I’ve got more records than the KGB\u2026So, uh, no funny business.\u201d  This was a thinly veiled message that if anything happened to Assange, he was going to do a data dump. Why did Assange respond in this way? Because he found out about the offer from Trump \u2013 essentially forgiving him for his leaks of stolen info \u2013 and responded positively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how people sometimes communicate at high levels \u2013 in code. That\u2019s why he\u2019s smiling, IMHO. His 9-year ordeal may finally be coming to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a lot of other stuff happened, some of which is too\nconspiratorial even for me, on April 11, 2019, British police forces in London\nannounced that Assange had been \u201carrested on behalf of the United States\nauthorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(See \u201cU.S. Extradites Julian Assange for \u2018Conspiracy with Chelsea Manning in 2010,\u2019\u201d Allum Bokhari, Breitbart, April 11, 2019. https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2019\/04\/11\/u-s-extradition-request-forced-assange-arrest\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was another move on the chessboard by Trump against the deep state, because Assange has a treasure trove of data he hasn\u2019t released yet. The counter move by the deep state? On May 13, 2019, the Swedish government announced that it was re-opening the rape case against Assange. (See  \u201cSweden Reopens Rape Case Against Julian Assange,\u201d Megan Specia, May 13, 2019, the New York Times<\/em>. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/13\/world\/europe\/wikileaks-julian-assange.html<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember that (from the Times\n<\/em>article) \u201cThe [Assange] investigation stems from an accusation in August\n2010 made by a Swedish woman who said Mr. Assange had sexually assaulted her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Britain has a choice: Either extradite Assange to\nSweden, where he will face trial for the rape case, or be sent to the US, where\nhe will be in the hands of Trump. Since Assange has already accepted Trump\u2019s\noffer to come to the US, I have to assume that he is ready to spill some deep\nstate secrets. Assange knows where a lot of bodies are buried, and can answer\nthe question of, \u201cWhere did Wikileaks get the stolen\/hacked DNC emails from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The answer to this\nquestion will silence a lot of conspiracy theories, among them, that Russia\nstole the emails, that DNC staffer Seth Rich stole the emails, that KimDotCom\nstole them, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting that the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller,\ncould have interviewed Assange but didn\u2019t. If Assange got the stolen emails\nfrom Russia, Mueller could have taken his testimony and the 2-year\ninvestigation would have been over pretty quick. Trump\u2019s involvement (or\nnon-involvement) would have been confirmed. If he was involved, impeachment\nproceedings could have quickly moved forward, with evidence for it. So why Didn\u2019t\nMueller ever talk to Assange? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what I can\u2019t figure out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will the UK extradite J.A. to Sweden or to the US?  The answer to that will be interesting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postscript: The Two “Coups”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is interesting is that the (alleged) Democratic attempt to overthrow Donald Trump is eerily similar to the one the Republicans used to try to overthrow FDR (allegedly).  The first one was organized in 1933 by wealthy Republican businessmen and was called the \u201cBusiness Plot.\u201d Roosevelt’s election was upsetting for many conservative businessmen at that time. From Wikipedia: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some writers have said concerns over the gold standard were also involved [FDR took the US off the gold standard in 1933]; Jules Archer, in The Plot to Seize the White House<\/em>, wrote that with the end of the gold standard, \u2018conservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor.\u2019 <\/p>

During the McCormack\u2013Dickstein Committee hearings General Smedley Butler testified that Gerald C. MacGuire attempted to recruit him to lead a coup, promising him an army of 500,000 men for a march on Washington, DC, and financial backing. Butler testified that the pretext for the coup would be that the president’s health was failing. Despite Butler’s support for Roosevelt in the election and his reputation as a strong critic of capitalism, Butler said the plotters felt his good reputation and popularity were vital in attracting support amongst the general public and saw him as easier to manipulate than others. Given a successful coup, Butler said that the plan was for him to have held near-absolute power in the newly created position of \u2018Secretary of General Affairs\u2019, while Roosevelt would have assumed a figurehead role.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The (alleged) spying campaign on Donald Trump (Republicans call it no less than a coup \u2013 an attempt to overthrow an elected president) \u2013 has been organized by Democrats, former CIA director John Brennan and former DNI James Clapper, with the cooperation of officials who served in the Obama administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1933 it was conservatives concerned about the rise of socialism and Communism. In 2018, it was liberals concerned about the rise of fascism. In 1933 the pretext for the coup was FDR\u2019s failing health. In 2018 the pretext was about Trump\u2019s supposed mental instability. In 1933 Gen. Smedley Butler refused to cooperate with the Republican coup plotters. In 2016 Admiral Mike Rogers, Obama\u2019s head of the NSA, refused to go along with coup plotters in his party who were tapping Trump\u2019s campaign. Rogers, on his own time, went to the Trump Tower in New York to inform the incoming president that he was being spied on. (Trump immediately moved his campaign staff to Florida). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

History repeats itself in odd ways!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot more will be coming out about the \u201ccoup\u201d against Trump\nin the run-up to the 2020 elections, which will be, in my opinion, the most\nimportant election in the history of the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a photo of Julian Assange after he was dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London a few weeks ago: Excuse me, but why is this man smiling? He is under indictment in the US for publishing the stolen … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":497,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}