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Trump Offered Assange Pardon if He Covered Up Russian Hack, WikiLeaks Founder’s Lawyer Claims
LONDON—A lawyer for Julian Assange has claimed in court that President Trump offered to pardon Assange if the WikiLeaks founder agreed to help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee. Assange’s lawyers said on Wednesday that former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after emails that damaged Hillary Clinton in the presidential race had been published. WikiLeaks posted the stolen DNC emails after they were hacked by Russian operatives.The claim that Rohrabacher acted as an emissary for the White House came during a pre-extradition hearing in London.Assange has argued that he should not be extradited to the U.S. because the American case against him is politically motivated. He spent almost seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in Central London claiming that he would be jailed in the U.S. if he wasn’t granted asylum. He was kicked out of the embassy last year.His lawyers told the court that Trump’s alleged offer to pardon Assange proved that this was no ordinary criminal investigation.Edward Fitzgerald, who was representing Assange in court, said he had evidence that a quid pro quo was put to Assange by Rohrabacher, who was known as Putin’s favorite congressman.GOP Lawmaker Got Direction From Moscow, Took It Back to D.C.Fitzgerald said a statement produced by Assange’s personal lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, included a description of “Mr Rohrabacher going to see Mr Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange… said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.”White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham denied the allegation on Wednesday. “The President barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he’s an ex-congressman,” she said in a statement. “He’s never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject. It is a complete fabrication and a total lie. This is probably another never ending hoax and total lie from the DNC.”District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who is presiding over the pre-trial hearing in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said the allegation would be admissible during Assange’s extradition hearing, which is due to begin next week.If Assange appears in court in the U.S., he will face 18 charges including conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, which could total a prison sentence of 175 years.Two months after Rohrabaher’s trip to visit Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported that he was trying to arrange a deal for Trump to pardon Assange. The White House confirmed at the time that Rohrabacher had spoken to Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly about the plan to free Assange, but it was not clear if Trump had personally spoken to Rohrabacher either before or after his mission to London. In 2018, Rohrabacher told The Intercept that he had been blocked from discussing the plan with the president because Kelly and other White House staffers were scared it would look like collusion. “What is preventing me from talking to Trump about this is the existence of a special prosecutor,” Rohrabacher told The Intercept. “Not only Kelly, but others are worried if I say one word to Trump about Russia, that it would appear to out-of-control prosecutors that that is where the collusion is.”Rohrabacher, who lost his California re-election fight in 2018, has been accused of helping push Kremlin lines in the U.S. in the past. A few months before he went to London to meet Assange, his staff director was ousted after a report by The Daily Beast exposed close links between Russia and Rohrabacher. The Congressman had worked with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met Trump’s campaign team at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, part of a lobbying operation designed to promote Kremlin aims in Washington.Stephen Colbert Can’t Believe Trump Trusts Julian Assange More Than American IntelligenceRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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