“My beloved brother Julian Assange is now FREE!,” West wrote on social media after news of Assange’s expected release broke on Monday. “We have struggled, fought and prayed for years for this wonderful moment!”
Green also commented on X, calling it an “incredible sight” to see Assange boarding a plane in London and walking outside.
Their reactions are emblematic of those of others on the far left and far right of the American political spectrum, and highlight the strange coalition of sympathizers Assange has attracted during his years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and in prison.
Assange, 52, founder of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, He has become a polarizing figure since the site published emails stolen from Democratic Party servers by Russian government hackers in 2016. U.S. authorities have determined the emails were leaked by Moscow to try to interfere with the presidential election.
Assange was not charged in connection with those documents, but he was indicted in 2019 for violating the Espionage Act by publishing military documents and diplomatic cables related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. US prosecutors accused Assange of trying to help hack into classified systems with Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst who was later court-martialed. Manning was given a 35-year sentence for Espionage Act violations, serving nearly seven years of that sentence before President Barack Obama commuted it in 2017.
News broke Monday that Assange had reached a tentative agreement to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents between 2009 and 2011, according to court documents.
Assange is scheduled to be sentenced in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, according to a letter the Justice Department filed with the U.S.’s remote jurisdiction on Monday evening. He will then return to his native Australia to begin serving the 62-month sentence he is already serving in a London prison, the letter said.
Among Assange’s most vocal supporters was a strange mix of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said he was “overjoyed” by the news, and former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who called Assange a “good person.” The Green Party, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami, former Libertarian Congressman Justin Amash, and former Democratic presidential candidate and now Republican supporter Tulsi Gabbard all celebrated Assange’s release.
Conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also called Assange’s “freedom great news” and criticized the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations for pursuing Assange. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) struck a more balanced tone, saying he didn’t believe Assange violated espionage laws and shouldn’t have been charged in the first place, but he was concerned the plea deal would set a bad precedent. Ultimately, the Democrat sympathized with Assange.
“We are pleased that this ordeal is over and he can finally return to Australia to be with his family and focus on his health,” McGovern wrote on Monday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, former President Donald Trump had not publicly commented on Assange’s release. Assange was indicted on computer hacking charges under the Trump administration in 2018, and Trump did not pardon Assange while in office. Additionally, neither President Biden nor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was the target of the WikiLeaks leaked documents, have made any public statements about Assange’s release.
Lawmakers from both parties have also slammed Assange and the news of his release, with former Vice President Mike Pence blasting Assange and the Biden administration for reaching a plea deal, calling it a “miscarriage of justice.”
“Julian Assange endangered the lives of our soldiers during a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Pence wrote in X. “… Those who endanger the safety of our troops and the national security of the United States should never be offered a plea deal to avoid prison.”
Many moderate Republicans echoed Pence’s sentiments but have simply remained silent since news of Assange’s plea deal broke. Heath Mayo, founder of Principles First, a group formed in 2019 in response to concerns about the direction of the Republican Party, called Assange “a traitor who has put American soldiers at risk.”
“The widespread praise for Julian Assange within the Republican Party is just another example of why I am no longer a Republican,” Mayo wrote on social media on Tuesday.
Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman and vocal critic of Trump, put it more succinctly: “Assange is a traitor,” he wrote on X.
In a statement welcoming news of Assange’s plea deal, Jody Ginsburg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder “sets a harmful legal precedent” that journalists who receive classified material from whistleblowers can be tried under espionage laws.
Former FBI deputy director and NBC News national security analyst Frank Figliuzzi said Assange was “never” a journalist.
“He caused irreparable damage. He put lives at risk,” Figliuzzi said.
Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.
