[sackfield]

In an ideal world we would get to do a reverse investigation to understand which government officials were complicit in his very obviously politically motivated detention, action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability, and the system itself would be updated so powerful interests can't abuse the law like this. How far are we from this world?

[xkcd-sucks]

I was reminded of this joke:

> A city slicker shoots a duck out in the country. As he's retrieving it, a farmer walks up and stops him, claiming that since the duck is on his farm, it technically belongs to him. After minutes of arguing, the farmer proposes they settle the matter "country style."

> "What's country style?" asks the city boy.

> "Out here in the country," the farmer says: "when two fellers have a dispute, one feller kicks the other one in the balls as hard as he can. Then that feller, why, he kicks the first one as hard as he can. And so forth. Last man standin' wins the dispute."

> Warily the city boy agrees and prepares himself. The farmer hauls off and kicks him in the groin with all his might. The city boy falls to the ground in the most intense pain he's ever felt, crying like a baby and rolling around on the ground. Finally he staggers to his feet and says: "All right, n-now it's–it's m-my turn."

> The farmer grins: "Forget it, you win. Keep the duck."

[Buttons840]

The real life version is a company sues you for a stupid reason and after spending a couple hundred thousand dollars on your defense the company loses and says "our bad lol", and then the matter is settled.

Or, in this case, after prosecutors hold someone in prison for a decade or two they offer a plea deal.

[paulddraper]

That's like playing "who can punch the softest" with my dad

[wmf]

There has been reporting on this. Apparently there was one zealous person in DOJ pushing the Assange case and everybody else thinks it's too weak to be worth it.

[tyingq]

This article from the Intercept covers it pretty well. The prosecutor in question is Gordon Kromberg.

https://archive.is/E5KbI

Here's another: https://www.newagebd.net/article/226187/julian-assanges-gran...

[doctorpangloss]

It's interesting, if you believe that one person can take down the system - as a whistleblower must - well surely, one person can buck the system's instincts and try to take down you.

[zarzavat]

This doesn’t make sense because the Assange case has been a diplomatic issue between the US and Australia ever since Albanese came to power.

Ultimately the responsibility falls to the President since the DOJ isn’t responsible for international relations. Biden must have thought the case was important otherwise there’s no reason to harm relations with an ally over something like that.

[alfiedotwtf]

Don’t forget Hillary was fixated on Assange for a long time, and was even quoted with “Can’t we just drone the guy?”.

The direct spat lead to Assange helping Trump and the Russians publish Hillary’s email server spool.

I don’t like that Assange ended up helping Trump and Russia, but you can’t blame him for helping the one person who can kick the person out of office who wants to Tomahawk you

[dboreham]

Responsibility has to be pretty defuse, right? You can at least begin with all the presidents in office since he was prosecuted, until N-1 since presumably the Nth just released him.

[sackfield]

Diffusion of responsibility is definitely a defense in these cases, but the system should recognize this shortcoming and assign accountability (at least in an ideal world).

Although I'm willing to bet that the true actors here weren't necessarily presidents (even though they would ultimately be accountable like you say). Would be interesting to see who demanded what and when.

[etchalon]

A lot of Assange supporters are going to feel weird about giving Biden credit for his release, especially since Biden was part of the administration that initially decided to pursue Assange.

[jesterson]

Oh boy, very far, unfortunately.

What you say we need badly as it keeps every government employee accountable for what they did.

[dang]

Since your comments have become repeatedly flamebaity and unsubstantive, and now appear to consist mostly of "LMAO", we've banned the account. HN is for something else.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[tophi]

Cheers. what say you to Navalny’s torture, detainment, and death?

[pastage]

Corrupting legal processes with a combination of weasel talk and bureaucracy is always the first step towards a Navalnyj situation. When that happens to political dissidents how ever bad they are we should all feel great concern.

But I might missunderstand you.

[sackfield]

I don't know a lot about it, on the face of it I think its terrible. Why do you ask?

[hajile]

Most reasonable people would denounce BOTH. You seem to be pushing toward the idea that "if they do something evil, my evil is no longer evil".

[29athrowaway]

There is a big overlap between political organizations and organized crime.

[ajross]

> action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability

Out of genuine curiosity: what "actions" do you want taken and what accountability are you interested in? I mean, to be blunt: you think this is a crime, right? You want someone charged and prosecuted in a court, with due process, in front of a jury of peers, yada yada.

So... what if your imaginary prosecutor jumps ship to somewhere else where they get arrested and detained, and then refuse to come back to the US to face trial. Are they not then a political prisoner? Why not?

The point being: Assange wasn't thrown in jail without trial, he was thrown in jail because he refused trial. And there's an important difference.