If he is an intelligence asset, it is not one friendly to the United States, or its allies in the West. I would find it fairly unlikely he is an intelligence asset though. His releasing the DNC emails arguably helped Trump get elected (at least marginally), and Clinton would have been far friendlier to US enemies. I generally do not believe he is an intelligence asset.
IIRC, Clinton had talked about possibly assassinate Assange, but I believe this may have been prior to him moving into the Ecuador Embassy.
IMO trump should pardon him. He is likely to face politically motivated charges in the US related to the 2016 election.
I don't know why after this years of giving him asylum, the Ecuadorian government finally gave in to the demands of the West and it's politically motivated.
A new president was elected, and he did not want his government to have to deal with Assange.
Snowden tweeted the arrest was in relation to a US warrant and extradition request from 2017 in relation to work with Bradley Manning.
Even though I'd want Trump to go ahead and pardon Assange, I highly doubt that he's going to be able to pardon him without a good amount of fighting from the left and right on the topic of national intelligence.
Though I do think that WikiLeaks is going to get a large number of donations from this, and there's going to be a movement in some circles to have him pardoned. I'd put the odds on 80-20 on him being pardoned.
He's not a US citizen though right? I don't know why he would be subject to US rules simply because he exposed them.
Assange will have an extradition hearing in the UK, it isn't for sure he will even get to the US.
The unsealed indictment has a single count in it. The government alleges Assange was an active participant in stealing classified material from the US government (with Manning in 2010). A possible superseding indictment is always possible.
According to US law there is a criminal difference between a publisher who releases material obtained passively vs a publisher who releases material they broke the law to obtain. IOW Assange is not being charged for releasing the classified material but for his or his organizations active involvement in stealing classified information from the US government (which is a crime).
Sounds like a tough case to prosecute, but who knows we have so little of the facts and evidence at this point it might be a slam dunk with some new info we didn't know.
Hm, does anyone know how an extradition hearing even works? What're the criteria for a country to ship someone off?
Though with the information about the crime he's being charged with -- I guess that could stick, we'll see.