espionage
Julian Assange released from prison after agreeing to plea deal with US government
Julian Assange, Embassy Of Ecuador on May 19, 2017, in London, England
From LifeSiteNews
Following a 5-year solitary incarceration, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was released from a London prison after taking a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the publication of classified information online.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison after agreeing to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department.
On Monday, the high-profile journalist was released from prison after agreeing to a deal in which he plead guilty for his involvement in publishing classified information received from a whistleblower working inside the U.S. government.
As CNN reported, Assange will receive a 62-month prison sentence according to the terms of the agreements. The sentence equals the time he spent in the high-security prison Belmarsh near London. The time served will be credited toward his sentence, allowing Assange to leave prison immediately and return to his native Australia.
“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks announced in its statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. “He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a…
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organizers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations. This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized. We will provide more information as soon as possible.”
“After more than five years in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars,” the statement continued, adding that “WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know.”
Assange is expected to officially plead guilty in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, a U.S. territory located in the Pacific Ocean relatively close to Assange’s native Australia.
Assange faced life in prison in the U.S. for 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse related to the publication of millions of classified documents by WikiLeaks.
Assange’s legal battle began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified documents regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including a video that showed a U.S. military helicopter killing several civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad, Iraq. The information was provided by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. From 2012 to 2019, Assange lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London under asylum status. After he was arrested by Metropolitan police in 2019 under an extradition warrant from the U.S. government, Assange was imprisoned at Belmarsh, a high-security prison close to London, where he has been held in solitary confinement up until Monday.
According to sources cited by CNN, officials at the Justice Department and the FBI opposed any deal that did not include a guilty plea to a felony by Assange.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald warned of the danger of Assange pleading guilty to a felony for publishing classified information, which, in the eyes of many, was not a crime but a service to society, namely providing information showing that governments are deceiving their citizens.
“I never believed that the Biden administration actually wanted to bring Julian Assange onto American soil to stand trial,” Greenwald said. “Imagine the spectacle that it would have created as Biden heads into an election.”
It would put on Joe Biden’s record that he would be the first American president in history to preside over the imprisonment, not of a source who leaked information, but of someone who published classified information, which every newspaper in the United States does on a regular basis…
The goal of… keeping him in prison was to crush Julian Assange physically and mentally, and they succeeded in doing that…
They wanted to break Assange and simultaneously send a message to any future Assanges that ‘We will ruin your life if you publish our secrets.’
Drawing parallels to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not being allowed to return to the U.S., Greenwald said, “It is a deterrent message to keep the ability to hide their own crimes through secrecy, immune from the one vulnerability that they have which is that brave people inside the government leak that information to the public or through the media and reveal what it is they are doing.”
Peter Doocy asked directly, “What happened to the Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had on her desk?” Here’s how Leavitt tried to explain it.
The Epstein client list was supposed to be SITTING on Pam Bondi’s desk for review.
But months later, the DOJ says no such list even exists.
Karoline Leavitt was just asked why there was such a reversal in so little time.
Her responses today are raising eyebrows.
On February 21st, Pam Bondi told the world the Epstein client list was “sitting on [her] desk right now to review,” explaining it was part of a directive ordered by President Trump.
Shortly afterward, she and Kash Patel pledged to end the Epstein cover-up, promising to fully disclose the Epstein files to the public, hold accountable any government officials who withheld key evidence, and investigate why critical documents had been hidden in the first place.
But ever since late February, it seems the cover-up wasn’t exposed but buried even deeper by those who promised transparency.
First, they handed out the so-called “Epstein files” to influencers like golden Willy Wanka tickets, only for everyone to discover that almost all of the contents inside were already public and contained no new revelations.
Fast-forward to May, and suddenly Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are declaring firmly that Epstein killed himself.
“I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself,” Bongino stated bluntly to Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.
Today, the Trump-appointed DOJ and FBI released a new report that’s turning heads and raising plenty of questions.
They concluded that Epstein had no clients, didn’t blackmail anyone, and definitely killed himself.
FBI Concludes Epstein Had No Clients, Didn’t Blackmail Anyone, and Definitely Killed Himself
This article originally appeared on Infowars and was republished with permission.
They also released surveillance footage and claimed it showed no one entered Epstein’s cell area, supporting the suicide ruling.
But people aren’t convinced. Some allege the video cuts off, with a minute of footage missing between 11:59 PM and midnight.
Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to questions about the Epstein client list in light of these new DOJ and FBI statements.
A reporter asked, “Karoline, the DOJ and FBI have now concluded there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list. What do you tell MAGA supporters who say they want anyone involved in Epstein’s alleged crimes held accountable?”
Leavitt replied, “This administration wants anyone who has ever committed a crime to be accountable, and I would argue this administration has done more to lock up bad guys than certainly the previous administration.”
She continued, “The Trump administration is committed to truth and transparency. That’s why the Attorney General and the FBI Director pledged, at the president’s direction, to do an exhaustive review of all the files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and his death. They put out a memo in conclusion of that review.”
“There was material they did not release because frankly it was incredibly graphic and contained child pornography, which is not something that is appropriate for public consumption,” she added.
“But they committed to an exhaustive investigation. That’s what they did and they provided the results of that.”
“That’s transparency,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt was also pressed about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments in February when she claimed she had the Epstein list “on [her] desk.”
Peter Doocy asked, “Okay, so the FBI looks at the circumstances surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein. According to the report, this systematic review revealed no incriminating client list. So what happened to the Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had on her desk?”
Leavitt responded, “I think if you go back and look at what the Attorney General said in that interview, which was on your network, on Fox News—”
Doocy pushed back, “I have the quote. John Roberts said: ‘DOJ may release the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, will that really happen?’ And she said, ‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.’”
Leavitt explained, “Yes. She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, that’s what the Attorney General was referring to. And I will let her speak for that.”
“But when it comes to the FBI and the Department of Justice, they are more than committed to ensuring that bad people are put behind bars.”
So, after months of patiently waiting, the American people get a nothing burger that simply repeats the same old claims we heard under Bill Barr.
Even worse, it’s purported that this is what “transparency” and “accountability” look like.
The story went from saying the Epstein client list was “on my desk” to “actually, there is no client list.”
And the newly released video footage raises questions and, in the age of AI, proves nothing.
If there’s really nothing to hide, why does it still feel like they’re hiding everything?
And most importantly—who’s still being protected?
Thanks for reading to the end. I hope you found this timeline of events and recap helpful.
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Crime
News Jeffrey Epstein did not have a client list, nor did he kill himself, Trump DOJ, FBI claim
From LifeSiteNews
By Robert Jones
Elon Musk, who previously said Trump was on the list, was one of many X users to express skepticism of the report.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations say they have found no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list,” or was murdered, per a memo obtained by Axios.
The document states that Epstein died by suicide and confirms that no further charges will be filed — effectively signaling the end of an active investigation, though no formal closure has been announced.
The findings were disclosed in a two-page statement, marking the Trump administration’s first definitive rejection of years of speculation surrounding Epstein’s 2019 death in federal custody.
READ: Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre reportedly dies by suicide
Investigators say enhanced surveillance footage from the night Epstein died in a New York prison shows no one entered the area near his cell from the time he was locked in until his body was discovered.
“The FBI enhanced the relevant footage by increasing its contrast, balancing the color, and improving its sharpness,” the memo states.
Axios also claimed that the Trump administration would be releasing videos proving its findings, though the links provided in the Axios story to the videos were inactive.
Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell remains incarcerated, serving a 20-year sentence for trafficking underage girls.
Despite previously being outspoken skeptics of the official government narrative, current FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino now back the findings.
“He killed himself,” Bongino said during a May appearance on Fox News along with Patel. “I’ve seen the whole file.”
Despite the release of the footage, questions remain about the veracity of the findings.
A February release of Epstein-related files by the DOJ was criticized by members of Congress, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), for failing to disclose new information.
“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR,” she exclaimed in an X post.
I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today… A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phonebook.
THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment.
GET US THE…
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2025
The latest memo reiterates that further disclosures would not be “appropriate or warranted,” citing concerns about revealing details of abuse and risking the exposure of otherwise innocent individuals.
READ: FBI releases incomplete set of files on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, triggering public outcry
Adding fuel to the controversy, former DOGE adviser Elon Musk recently accused Trump of being named in Epstein’s files. Musk later retracted the claim and deleted his X posts about the topic, but shared his frustration with the latest developments earlier today.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2025
The DOJ’s announcement signals that the government considers the matter closed, despite continued public interest and bipartisan demands for greater transparency.
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