Chris Hedges on Julian Assange and the Rule of Law

[Illustration by Mr. Fish]

Chris Hedges: Julian Assange and the Collapse of the Rule of Law

Chris Hedges, Scheerpost, June 11, 2021, 12 Comments

Chris Hedges gave this talk at a rally Thursday night in New York City in support of Julian Assange. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian's father and brother, also spoke at the event, which was held at The People's Forum.

Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Julian, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence.

The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.

I was in the London courtroom when Julian was being tried by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in Alice-in Wonderland demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.


The U.S. government directed, as Craig Murray so eloquently documented, the London prosecutor James Lewis. Lewis presented these directives to Baraitser. Baraitser adopted them as her legal decision. It was judicial pantomime. Lewis and the judge insisted they were not attempting to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press while they busily set up the legal framework to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press. And that is why the court worked so hard to mask the proceedings from the public, limiting access to the courtroom to a handful of observers and making it hard and at times impossible to access the trial online. It was a tawdry show trial, not an example of the best of English jurisprudence but the Lubyanka.

Now, I know many of us here tonight would like to think of ourselves as radicals, maybe even revolutionaries. But what we are demanding on the political spectrum is in fact conservative, it is the restoration of the rule of law. It is simple and basic. It should not, in a functioning democracy, be incendiary. But living in truth in a despotic system is the supreme act of defiance. This truth terrifies those in power.

The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are illegitimate. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Julian, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted.

Shortly after WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes -- including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints -- the towering civil rights attorneys Len Weinglass and my good friend Michael Ratner, who I would later accompany to meet Julian in the Ecuadoran Embassy, met with Julian in a studio apartment in Central London. Julian's personal bank cards had been blocked. Three encrypted laptops with documents detailing US war crimes had disappeared from his luggage in route to London. Swedish police were fabricating a case against him in a move, Ratner warned, that was about extraditing Julian to the United States.

"WikiLeaks and you personally are facing a battle that is both legal and political," Weinglass told Assange. "As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the US government doesn't like the truth coming out. And it doesn't like to be humiliated. No matter if it's Nixon or Bush or Obama, Republican or Democrat in the White House. The US government will try to stop you from publishing its ugly secrets. And if they have to destroy you and the First Amendment and the rights of publishers with you, they are willing to do it. We believe they are going to come after WikiLeaks and you, Julian, as the publisher."

"Come after me for what?" asked Julian.

"Espionage," Weinglass continued. "They're going to charge Bradley Manning with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917. We don't think it applies to him because he's a whistleblower, not a spy. And we don't think it applies to you either because you are a publisher. But they are going to try to force Manning into implicating you as his collaborator."

"Come after me for what?"
That is the question.

They came after Julian not for his vices, but his virtues.

They came after Julian because he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians; because he exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guanta'namo; because he exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included the eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003; because he exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime; because he exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that under post-Nuremberg laws is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, that they authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of U.S. citizens in Yemen, and that they secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians; because he exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform; because he exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party; because he exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permits the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images and private text messages, even from encrypted apps.

Julian exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths they came after Julian, as they have come after all who dared rip back the veil on power. "Red Rosa now has vanished too..." Bertolt Brecht wrote after the German socialist Rosa Luxemburg was murdered. "She told the poor what life is about, And so the rich have rubbed her out."

We have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where we, as citizens, are nothing more than commodities to corporate systems of power, ones to be used, fleeced and discarded. To refuse to fight back, to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet from ecocide, to decry the domestic and international crimes of the ruling class, to demand justice, to live in truth, is to bear the mark of Cain. Those in power must feel our wrath, and this means constant acts of mass civil disobedience, it means constant acts of social and political disruption, for this organized power from below is the only power that will save us and the only power that will free Julian. Politics is a game of fear. It is our moral and civic duty to make those in power very, very afraid.

The criminal ruling class has all of us locked in its death grip. It cannot be reformed. It has abolished the rule of law. It obscures and falsifies the truth. It seeks the consolidation of its obscene wealth and power. And so, to quote the Queen of Hearts, metaphorically of course, I say, "Off with their heads."

Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact. MORE

Democracy and the Rule of Law is Slipping Away Says Former Justice Anthony Kennedy

Anthony Kennedy

Former Justice Kennedy Says Democracy Slipping Away

Andrew M. Ballard

Staff Correspondent

Posted April 12, 2019, 10:25 AM

The rule of law, fundamental to freedom and democracy, is being chipped away, according to former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“Democracy is slipping away, in part by deliberate attack,” and Americans must acknowledge that it is under assault and work to restore the system that binds us, Kennedy said. He told an audience that the United States needs to lead the globe in keeping the law superior to the government and preserving the rights and equality of citizens under the system.

Kennedy made his comments at an April 11 award ceremony at Duke University in Durham, N.C., honoring the retired justice for his efforts to promote the rule of law.

“One of the first things we must do is develop in this nation a devotion—a return to—a decent, respectful, thoughtful civic dialogue,” Kennedy said. “The civic dialogue is the basis of consensus and consensus must be the basis for our belief in the rule of law or our belief in freedom,” he told event participants.

“The verdict on freedom is out around the rest of the world,” the former justice said. The globe is looking for leadership from the United States and “they must be impressed by what they see.”

Current Justice Samuel Alito, also speaking at the event, called Kennedy “one of the most important justices of the modern era.”

Alito also spoke on the importance of the rule of law to our diverse nation and democratic government. Key to that system is that “disputes are decided fairly, they are not decided based on political influence or family connections or wealth or social class or ideology or any invidious ground,” he said.

Rosenstein Defends Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy and Rule of Law in ABA Speech

Rod Rosenstein

ABA Journal,

BY VICTOR LI, POSTED AUGUST 2, 2018

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may not be a very popular person within certain circles in Washington, D.C., but he received a rock-star welcome during the opening forum of the ABA Annual Meeting.

Speaking Thursday to a standing room-only crowd, Rosenstein received multiple standing ovations as he talked about the importance of preserving and promoting the rule of law while defending U.S. Department of Justice policies regarding efforts to combat foreign meddling in U.S. elections and the recent zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

“The rule of law is indispensable to a thriving and vibrant society,” he stated. “It shields citizens from government overreach. It allows businesses to invest with confidence. It gives innovators protection for their discoveries. It keeps people safe from dangerous criminals. And it allows us to resolve differences peacefully through reason and logic.”

In a short question-and-answer session with ABA President Hilarie Bass, Rosenstein affirmed that zero tolerance was consistent with the rule of law, and that the DOJ was simply doing its job in enforcing the laws and treating everyone equally.

“It would be wrong to say we’re prosecuting everyone without regard to the law,” said Rosenstein, who also stated that there were large numbers of people “blatantly violating the immigration laws of this country.” He added that “if the facts of the law justify prosecution, then we’re committing the resources to ensure everyone is treated equally rather than picking and choosing who will be prosecuted.”

Rosenstein also assured those in attendance that federal agencies are doing a lot to combat foreign meddling in elections and propagation of fake news. “Because a lot of the information we learn is from classified intelligence, there’s a lot we don’t talk about publicly,” said Rosenstein, who noted that federal agencies including the FBI, Justice Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security are constantly briefing state and local election officials about cyberthreats and attacks. He also pointed out that federal agencies are taking steps to combat hacking of political campaigns and candidates and pointed to the July indictment of 12 Russian nationals by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as evidence of this commitment.

When asked about the opioid crisis and safe injection sites as a means of combating the ongoing issue, Rosenstein was dismissive. “It’s illegal; it’s a crime,” he said. “I think you can anticipate that if someone would try that in the U.S., they would face litigation by the Department of Justice and they wouldn’t have much of a defense.” Rosenstein added that while he was “100 percent committed” to prevention and treatment, he believed that these sites sent the wrong message, giving illegal and dangerous drugs the imprimatur of government approval.

The embattled deputy attorney general has become a central figure in the ongoing probe into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. He was confirmed as the second-highest-ranking official at the DOJ by a 94-6 vote in the U.S. Senate in April 2017 after a 12-year tenure as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. Rosenstein soon found himself a fixture in the news. A couple of weeks after his confirmation, he authored a memo recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. Less than 10 days later, he appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.

Since then, Rosenstein has been under near-constant pressure to fire Mueller, amid reports that he could also be fired, and has become a target of House Republicans. Last week, 11 representatives filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein accusing him of not turning over requested documents. One day later, one of the co-sponsors of the impeachment resolution, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), announced he would table the effort and focus on pursuing a contempt citation if the documents were not produced.

Rosenstein basked in his warm reception while making light of some of his recent battles. Noting that Robert H. Jackson—attorney general from 1940 to 1941 before being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court—once remarked about the unpleasantness of dealing with congressional inquiries, Rosenstein drew laughs from the audience when he stated that he could relate.

Ultimately, Rosenstein defended his boss Sessions, echoing the ex-Alabama senator’s statements that the DOJ must be a nonpartisan entity dedicated to representing all Americans and not just a small subset.

“The Department of Justice must never be a partisan actor,” Rosenstein said. “In all cases, agents and prosecutors are obligated to make neutral decisions, preserve personal privacy, protect national security, and insulate investigations from political interference.”