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Feb. 21, 2024 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:07:45

Today Could Change HISTORY! Julian Assange Hearing LIVE - Day 2 - Stay Free #309

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	For the democracy!
	We need the rest of us!
	Everybody should be free and equal.
	Freedom of expression.
	Freedom of opinion.
	It's the basic thing for the democracy.
	We need freedom and justice!
	Everybody should communicate together!
	Everybody should be free and equal.
	Freedom of expression.
	Freedom of opinion.
	It's the basic thing for the democracy.
	We need you in our song!
	Every...
	I'm out.
	Oh Brought to you by Pfizer.
	In this video, you're going to see the future.
	Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	It's the second day of the Julian Assange hearing to see whether or not Julian Assange will have the right to appeal.
	And we are, of course, on location outside the Royal Courts of Justice, or the Royal Courts of Injustice, as they have become idiomatically known in these circles, at least.
	And we have already heard that Any decision will be relayed on the 4th of March.
	We'll be here for the whole hour speaking to people that have been strongly connected to this case in some instances since 2010 and before when the whole farrago began.
	Elsewhere in the world you'll be of course aware that Donald Trump has been enormously sued and it's created echoes throughout New York City.
	We've got all sorts of stories later this week about a massive revelation and series of trials around COVID but today we'll be focusing on this story because it's monumental significance in our space and how it relates to free speech and how it relates to deep state power and how it relates to media corruption.
	We've got a brilliant piece on the two justices or judges that are sitting or sat on the hearing, Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharpe, with her Enid Blyton-like name, Dame Victoria Sharpe!
	You'll get no justice here!
	So we'll be talking about some of their affiliations and in fact pointing out the impossibility of getting justice from the establishment via the establishment.
	And those of you that are watching us in the Rumble stream, I'd love to know your thoughts.
	How can the establishment adjudicate on behalf of itself?
	Wouldn't that be like the Matrix shutting itself down or Skynet going, actually, I quite like people.
	Give them another chance.
	Stop sending back all these Terminators.
	They can't be relied on not to become governors at some point in the future.
	If you're watching us in our Awake and Wonder community, thank you.
	You'll have seen our additional coverage that we've been making throughout the day.
	And if you're not already a supporter of our work, consider becoming one.
	You can become one monthly or annually.
	We make additional content every week on a variety of subjects.
	This week, for example, talking about Amy Winehouse and the new film about her.
	But today we are, of course, quite rightly focusing on this significant story.
	We'll be on YouTube for... Should we be on YouTube for about 15-20 minutes?
	We'll make a decision.
	If you're watching us on YouTube, we do urge you to join us over on Rumble because that is where we stream freely.
	It's where we do our best work and certainly our conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges will take place here.
	Chris is a good friend of the show and is educated as brilliantly on Middle Eastern politics and, in a sense, military-industrial complex corruption and the way that deep state politics truly works.
	Let's start off today with our wonderful friends like you, Shepard Servant, and you, Trish McLeod, thank you for the compliment, and Jalopi Johnson.
	Hey, welcome from YouTube, and I support Russia.
	Don't make me say that!
	That can be clipped now!
	I'm already saying that.
	I don't want to live in Russia, either.
	I believe in decentralisation.
	I think that you should have personal individual sovereignty, that we should democratically run our communities.
	And I think, do you know who I like?
	Putin!
	There's a guy who knows how to run a nation, he knows his history, and he ain't afraid to tell you it, in huge half-hour tracks.
	Welcome all of you in the Rumble Stream, all of you Awake and Wonders over there on YouTube.
	You are most beloved and our locals community, we love you as well.
	Let's have a look at Stella's first statement since the hearing concluded and pay attention in particular to the pathos and sort of, I don't know, eeriness and sort of odd lack of preparation given this was a long prepared event.
	Let's have a look now.
	Well, we're in a small courtroom.
	The technical difficulties are just inexplicable.
	They've had two months to prepare.
	Half the room can't hear what's going on.
	And it was the day for the U.S.
	arguments which are basically just repeating the US Pentagon talking points from 2010 and
	their argument is don't question what the prosecutors say, that's for the US courts
	to decide and all the evidence that the defence has brought about plans to kill Julian, plans
	to kidnap him, spying on his lawyers and so on, you just set that aside because we don't
	want to offend our allies.
	Do not question the powerful.
	In a sense, the argument that's still being relayed is the argument that was being relayed in 2010.
	And I suppose they would say, well, of course, that is still the argument.
	But since then, as Stella pointed out, we've learned of a CIA plot to kidnap and murder Julian Assange, and perhaps because of the revelations that Julian either facilitated or was affiliated with, i.e.
	Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, we now know how the Deep State operates.
	And since then, we've seen how the censorship industrial complex has evolved.
	And if you're watching us in the Rumble chat, And you're not supporting Julian Assange, and of course you're free not to, because we welcome all forms of communication here.
	You have to bear in mind, whose side are you on?
	It's like people that, in a sense, crave tyranny, that crave domination, that long to yield and bend to power, afraid of too much freedom.
	Now, of course we learned today, from the prosecution actually, that in the event that Julian Assange is ...extradited and that remains a strong possibility he could face additional charges.
	Proper journalist Richard Medhurst today posted this on X. Justice Johnson asked the government lawyer once someone is in US jurisdiction is there anything preventing the US from piling on new charges and handing down a death penalty?
	Government lawyer Technically no!
	Oh well, that's reassuring given the way that Julian Assange has been treated up till now.
	Here is Julian's lawyer, Jen Robinson, extrapolating on that point.
	Let's have a look.
	That the conduct that Julian's been accused of on the terms of the indictment could be used to charge him with other more serious offenses or indeed be used to sentence him in more serious ways.
	And we heard a lot about how this prosecution and indictment was instituted after the CIA disclosure, so after Vault 7.
	So there is a risk that Julian could face further charges once in the United States and that the conduct as described on the indictment could in fact be used to form the basis of a charge under the Espionage Act that could attract a death penalty and that's prohibited by the Extradition Act.
	If you're watching us on YouTube, consider coming over to the stream of freedom that is Rumble, where we do our greatest work, where we speak most freely.
	And if you're not a supporter of our content yet, consider becoming one.
	We do additional content every week, as well as providing you with direct, continual access.
	In participation with the cultivation of our ongoing movement.
	Joining us pretty soon will be the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, who's one of the kind of elders that we can turn to to ensure that movements such as ours in independent media have some pedigree heritage, some elders to whom we can turn to properly learn rather than living in this constant and ephemeral present Surrounded continually by screens that want nothing but endless commodity to see you as a commodity.
	Even this case is being covered by the legacy media in an extraordinarily phatic and ridiculous way.
	I want you to bear in mind what the Julian Assange case encapsulates from our perspective.
	The freedom of speech, the possibility of holding the powerful to account, the revelation that our governments commit murder on our behalf, that our governments and deep states spy on us, that they benefit and profit from our ignorance and compliance.
	Look at how this is covered on your friend and mine, CNN.
	And welcome back to State of the Race.
	My panel rejoins me for this last segment.
	Before we go, we want to ask for one more thing.
	What's the one thing on the campaign trail or in Washington?
	Doing it as one more thing.
	You know, like, normally on news there might be a story about, today a cat appeared to talk while wearing a hat.
	Like, to take the edge off the rest of the news.
	Because the whole news up to that point has been, you are going to suffer in silence.
	You have no power in your own life.
	You are doomed.
	Whether it's climate change or perpetual war, shut up.
	Like, with the same jocund lightheartedness and brevity that they would normally cover a man putting an alligator in a bin.
	A story that I very much enjoyed, by the way.
	They're covering the case of Julian Assange.
	They're trying to actually, literally, I'm not even joking, fit it into 30 seconds, like it is an alligator in a bin made of time.
	What you're watching for in the coming days, you get 30 seconds each.
	Okay, so my story is across the pond, not Washington.
	It is about Julian Assange, who I share a birthday with, funny enough.
	On Wikipedia, I noticed near the top that it said his birthday.
	And that's the same day what I was born in.
	And in fact, I don't want to be critical of that person.
	She's a human being just like us.
	Glorious, glorious creation of the limitless light.
	But it is a pretty... There's this thing called Julian Assange.
	There's this other thing called global tyranny.
	There's this thing called creeping globalism.
	There's this thing called the pandemic where authoritarianism was piloted on a massive scale.
	That's enough now!
	Your 30 seconds is up!
	Anyways, he's had a decades-long battle we all know to fight extradition and now today is the start of a two-day hearing in a London High Court that is about extradition.
	So there could be a plane waiting on a tarmac to bring Julian Assange within these U.S.
	borders.
	That's nice to see Julian Assange brought to his almost certain death.
	If he's found to need to be extradited.
	Again, this is not about whether he's a journalist or not or about the league.
	get into the nitty gritty of justice and free speech.
	...or whatever else has happened in this past decade, which has been a lot for him.
	But this is about whether he could come here or not.
	And I think the chance is pretty likely.
	All right, Paul, we're tight on time.
	Well, covering out, but I think the chance is pretty likely.
	I wonder what Tom's story was gonna be.
	Okay, well I found out that the war against Russia is indeed a proxy war and part of a unipolar plan of globalist United States interest to destabilize both Russia and China so that we can over time impose a kind of nightmare on the people.
	Okay, Tom!
	Tom!
	What have I told you about these 30-second stories?
	They're supposed to be light-hearted.
	Okay, listen, we're going to bring in, if you're watching us on YouTube right now, there's a link in the description so you can join us over on Rumble if you're already on Rumble.
	Why not consider becoming a member of our community to get additional content and to support the work we do here?
	This is a big year, 2024.
	We're going to be reporting on elections all over the world.
	Are they elections?
	Are there such things as elections these days?
	Or is there just one global uni-party squabbling about ephemera while directing us towards cells of further tyranny?
	These are the kind of questions I'll be asking Chris Hedges in just a moment, as well as, of course, getting his inside take on his relationship with Julian Assange, a man with whom he's been friends for a long time now, and his take from inside the hearing, which is where he's been, and he's indeed, I've seen him, wearing an actual suit.
	I don't think we've ever had a guest in a suit before, so this is quite big for us.
	Catch up now with what people outside have been saying about the Assange case.
	The march is underway, you may have seen that already, and let's have a look at what people have been saying out there.
	See you in a few seconds with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, when those awards meant something, Chris Hedges.
	My name is Alexandra and I'm from Germany, from a city near to Frankfurt.
	I come here over the ferry from Calais and we are here for Julian Assange to get him free out of prison in Belmarche.
	And what are we reporting?
	Russell Bryan from State Free Media.
	Oh!
	That horrible misogynist, that terrible... conspiracy theorist, yeah.
	I love Russell Brand.
	Where is he hiding around here?
	I've come from Pasadena, California in the United States as the National Organizing Director of Assange Defense to show solidarity with people around the world calling for the extradition of Julian Assange to be halted and for him to be released immediately and unconditionally.
	We're here because we're of the opinion, we who are here from Germany as guests in London, that not those who commit war crimes should be punished, but those who are responsible for war crimes should be punished.
	This case is very important for me because I have the opinion that Julian Assange, as a journalist, just did his job.
	Even if this is a secret.
	If crime is known, he has to publish it.
	If Julian is convicted, there is no future for free speech.
	Journalism will become a crime.
	I travel from a small village in Sardinia.
	This is the single most important question at the moment because if he perishes, What else can we do?
	Next time we have to denounce a crime.
	Here in Britain, prosecution had to admit that no one was harmed by any of the WikiLeaks revelations.
	So why is he on trial?
	He's on trial for doing the job of every reporter.
	So to answer your question, there will be no free speech.
	There will be no journalism.
	There will only be propaganda and lies if he's found guilty.
	If I weren't hopeful I wouldn't be here, but it's hard to find hope.
	The truth should prevail always and I think at the end of the day when truth is tried to be hidden, it's like the sun.
	The sun will always rise and it will always come out.
	I think the mainstream media is dead.
	I hope it's dead because they've disappointed everybody.
	I think what they have either turned a blind eye to or they've been part of, I think they'll pay a very high price for that.
	So I think it's a totally different journalism.
	I think citizen journalists are going to be the future, personally, and good on them.
	So people like Russell Brand, who, you know, I think this case today is for Julian Assange's case to be heard, not even for the extradition to stop.
	I mean, that is everything you need to know, really.
	I think it's an important moment for Britain.
	Yeah, yeah, I do watch Russell from Italy.
	the show on Rumble. I really love him.
	If you're watching us on YouTube, we'll be available to you for a few minutes more and
	you are not going to want to miss our conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris
	Hedges.
	Chris joins us now.
	You've come straight from the courtroom.
	Welcome, Chris.
	Thanks, Russell.
	Chris, can you tell me, first of all, what your intuitive and instinctive reaction is to the proceedings?
	I noticed that Stella was talking about sort of technical glitches and difficulties and The challenge is in even hearing what was happening, that the prosecution appeared to be trotting out decade-old arguments without nuance that didn't acknowledge some of the things we subsequently learned about the plot to murder Julian Assange being one thing.
	How do you feel having immediately emerged?
	Yeah, I thought today was fascinating because today it was the prosecution.
	They relied on an after-David written by Gordon Cromberg out of the Eastern District Court of New York, who's an extremely right-wing Islamophobe.
	He's gotten into trouble.
	I covered the Middle East for seven years, so I have very close ties to the Palestinian community, and he was really used to crucify Palestinian activists and Palestinian organizations after 9-11.
	And the kinds of things that he said in the courtroom.
	Very derisive about Islam and Muslims.
	And that's, I found it interesting that they grounded, the prosecution grounded their arguments in Crombert's After David, which had all sorts of information in it that was completely wrong, to be kind.
	They were lies.
	For instance, that the release of the Iraqi war logs endangered lives.
	of people listed as informants or collaborators.
	Well those were heavily redacted and the only way that the unredacted version got out is because the odious Luke Harding at the Guardian and others wrote a book and in the book gave the password and then another site took that password, used it to get into the unredacted logs and published them.
	That's how it happened.
	But they were in the courtroom blaming Julian for this.
	I also covered Chelsea Manning's trial.
	In that trial, the defense brought in a government witness, I believe they were from the State Department, who said there is no evidence that anyone was harmed.
	Because of the release of the Iraqi War Logs.
	And yet they were trying to argue that it was harmed.
	What I did find encouraging with the judges, the two judges... Are you on drugs, Chris?
	The judges were pretty skeptical.
	And I think the other thing that I sensed that the judges picked up is that Julian is not really being extradited for the 2010 Iraqi War Logs.
	He's being extradited because of Vault 7.
	Vault 7, and we just had the person who leaked, the former CIA employee who leaked the information in Vault 7 to WikiLeaks, was just given a 40-year sentence.
	And Vault 7 exposed all of the ways the CIA hacks into our phones, our televisions, even our cars, even when we think it's off, to monitor us.
	And that's when the whole push to extradite Julian began.
	So you had Mike Pompeo, the head of the CIA, call WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence agency.
	I may have garbled the quote slightly.
	That's when you had Trump call for the death penalty for Julian.
	And that set in motion.
	But he's not charged!
	He's not charged with Vault 7, but there's no question, I think, that when he lands, if he lands in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, he is going to get charged.
	So Vault 7 was a WikiLeak release or cache, but it's not part of the charges as they currently stand, and indeed, many of the things you just said We're surprising but some of the ideas I'm familiar with at least are the ongoing vilification of Julian Assange not only by various United States agencies both covert and explicit but also the loathing that the legacy media has for Julian in spite of obviously being in partnership with Julian contemporaneously and to a degree celebrating the early WikiLeaks
	It's also interesting to hear you tag the various successive administrations, whether that's Obama, Trump or Biden, have all vilified Julian Assange.
	I wonder if the sense you get from observing the hearing today is that there are so many participants with a vested interest, whether that's the media, the state, the British establishment, the US establishment, ...intelligence services, that the idea that Julian Assange could be facilitated or granted a fair hearing, even though this is just in order to appeal extradition, is absurd, anomalous, a kind of impossibility, because the establishment can't, like, unravel itself.
	Well, you don't get to be in these positions unless you're selected and vetted and promoted by the establishment.
	So I've covered this from the beginning and used to visit Julian in the embassy and I have watched them run over the most basic judicial norms.
	I mean, for instance, eviscerating Attorney-client privilege by filming through UC Global his meetings with his attorneys in the embassy.
	And that's not speculation because there's a trial in Spain.
	We've seen the video.
	And that alone should throw the case out.
	The idea that you can charge him with espionage when he didn't spy.
	He's not a U.S.
	citizen.
	He was provided the information outside the United States.
	I mean, this goes on and on and on.
	So it's been almost Dickensian.
	I actually made a reference in my column yesterday to Bleak House.
	And so watching that pattern of eviscerate normal judicial process, I don't expect that to change.
	On the other hand, I would do expect, I mean, Niels Melzer, the former Special Rapporteur of Torture at the UN, You said that what's happening to Julian almost five years in Belmarsh is a slow-motion execution.
	He's deteriorating physically, and that's the point.
	On your point about it's important, having spent 15 years working for the New York Times, is that even though they were in partnership, they always loathed Julian.
	Because Julian, as any great journalist would, forced them or shamed them into doing their job.
	So yes, they had to, in partnership with WikiLeaks, publish this information.
	But that's why immediately after the publication of these files, for which they won all sorts of Pulitzers and everything else, they went after Julian.
	The Guardian was vicious, and the New York Times was vicious.
	Only belatedly did they sign a letter, the five publications that partnered with WikiLeaks, that's New York Times, Le Monde, Guardian, Der Spiegel, because their lawyers said if he is extradited, if he is found guilty, Then there is a legal precedent so that anyone who obtains classified information, as I did when I worked for the New York Times, and published it, that's a criminal offense.
	But they always hated Julian because You know, for me, Julian's a real journalist.
	Julian's not constrained.
	I mean, these are institutions that make their living by largely catering to the establishment, to the powerful, you know, for their sources.
	I. F. Stone used to say, well, you know, these establishment journalists know a lot more than I do, just most of it's false.
	And that was the tension.
	I think sometimes people outside the institutions wondered why they turned on Julian.
	No, they grit their teeth, because if they hadn't published that information in partnership with WikiLeaks, they would have been exposed for who they are, which is largely lapdogs of The people who run the place.
	Yes, in a sense Julian Assange and the Assange WikiLeaks era helped us to outline previous media paradigms, what its limitations were and its outliers, among whom I would include you and obviously Glenn Greenwald.
	And we often on our channel say that journalists like you and Glenn Greenwald But once having worked for organisations like the New York Times and now being cast out to the periphery of the online world, where we happily exist, shows you how much the establishment has altered.
	But by your reckoning, there has always been an affinity, or at least laterally, an affinity between these organisations and the establishment and a willingness at least to amplify and normalise their messaging.
	But what Assange did is demonstrated the capacity of new media to technologically advanced media to truly challenge, embarrass, expose, hold to account a serious establishment interest.
	And when you talk about Vault 7, this is beyond even nefarious activity in foreign wars, which, let's face it, to a degree, sadly, we all get somewhat annoyed to.
	But when we learn the degree to which our own governments criminalize us, spy on us, manage us, and control us, then you risk a population of dissidents.
	Yeah.
	Well, and that's exactly what's happening.
	I mean, it's what John Ralston Saul calls a corporate coup d'etat in slow motion.
	And the walls are closing in.
	So, people like Greenwald, Taibbi, and myself, ten years ago, were mainstream.
	I mean, we may have been critical, but we have watched the walls steadily close in.
	And, you know, I've been a journalist for a long time.
	I started covering the war in El Salvador in the 1980s.
	And seeing the erosion is terribly frightening, because with that historical perspective, I know where we're headed, which is a kind of new dark age.
	And they have tools now.
	I mean, they have shut down investments because of wholesale surveillance.
	Nobody can leak.
	In the case of Snowden, he immediately left the country because he knew he would be found out.
	And we are virtually at the point where it is almost impossible now
	to shine a light on the inner workings of power.
	And Julian did this more extensively than any journalist of our generation.
	You'd have to go back to the Pentagon Papers, but I would say his revelations are even greater and more
	important than the Pentagon Papers, which is why they're determined to destroy him.
	And I think that destroy him is the point, because legally, if we follow even the most basic laws that
	protect journalists, and unlike Ellsberg, he didn't actually take the documents.
	Ellsberg took the official, what do you call it, the British Secrets Act, or whatever you call it here.
	He was in- Do not be dismissive.
	Oh, sorry.
	About our laws, outside our own courts of justice.
	There you go.
	So he took the documents.
	Julian didn't.
	And...
	And so, you know, we are reaching a point where it's just becoming impossible.
	There's already had a huge chilling effect, mostly in terms of whistleblowers.
	So Obama used the Espionage Act extensively to go after whistleblowers.
	Trump then used the Espionage Act to go after a journalist, i.e.
	Julian.
	And I know, I still have friends at the New York Times, they can't get anyone now.
	We used to have people within the system, which is the lifeblood of journalism, who saw something, who had a conscience, and who said something.
	They won't say anything anymore.
	What do you think, Chris, about the judges that were presiding over this hearing?
	We know that Judge Jeremy Johnston has previously represented MI6 and indeed the Ministry of Defence in cases that are quite comparable to WikiLeaks-type revelations.
	Malpractice within the military, misuse of government power.
	And an extraordinary quirk we discovered is that he was with the coroners during the inquest into the death of Diana, for a rather more lurid and tabloid-oriented story.
	It seems that there's this odd trend.
	to appoint individuals that are like establishment specialists.
	When you talked about the prosecution earlier, well, isn't Aunt Dame Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, by virtue of their position, establishment figures, in all likelihood, unlikely to find favorably for Julian?
	Yeah, and they're selected.
	They're selected for those positions, and they certainly understand that if they don't dance to the tune by which the establishment plays, their career is finished.
	And these people are consummate careerists, and they all socialize together, and they all have relatives that work for MI5 or MI6, and yeah, it's this club.
	And as George Carlin said, we're not in it.
	So yes, of course, it's the club.
	That's how they got to where they are.
	And that's why they do what they do.
	Chris, we certainly are not in it, and we right now are sitting outside it.
	But I'm glad that we are part of this new club together.
	Thanks for joining us today.
	Not at all, Russell.
	It's great to see you.
	It's fantastic to have your insights.
	Now, we have a presentation now where we look more deeply at the judges that are sitting on that hearing.
	And given that we will hear the results on March the 4th, we now know, we can deduce the likelihood of a positive outcome by looking at some of the previous experiences and cases that, in particular, Judge Jeremy Johnson was involved in when he was a defendant here in this country.
	Now, if you're watching us on YouTube, we are going to depart before we play in this brilliant investigation.
	So click the link in the description and join us over on Rumble for a fantastic, brilliant piece of investigation.
	And coming up on the show a little later, we also have... Kristen is coming on, is that right?
	We've got Kristen Haraffenson, who is the current editor of WikiLeaks.
	So we can talk a little more about some of the things that Kris...
	Touched upon there about the difficulty of finding whistleblowers these days.
	So, YouTube, we're saying goodbye to you now.
	Click the link in the description.
	Join us over on Rumble.
	Now, it's been discovered that the judge set to rule on the Assange extradition case was previously paid to represent the interests of MI6 and the Ministry of Defence, whose activities WikiLeaks has previously exposed.
	What are the chances of a fair trial and a fair outcome of that hearing for Julian Assange?
	Here's the news.
	No, here's the effing news.
	See you in a second.
	Thank you for choosing Fox News.
	Good day.
	No, he's the fucking news!
	Julian Assange is perhaps the defining anti-establishment figure of our age.
	So when he has a hearing to see whether or not he will be able to appeal against extradition, you want a very neutral judge who has no ties to MI6, the Ministry of Defence or the establishment at all.
	You feel it's pivotal?
	It is pivotal!
	Indeed everything around us demonstrates that we are at a crucial moment.
	Even the current hearing that Julian Assange is having to fight for the right to have an appeal against his extradition.
	Look at the layers before Julian Assange will get anything approaching justice.
	He's currently, as you know I'm sure, in Belmar If you continue to disrupt the court in this way, I will have to cite you for contempt.
	You wouldn't dare!
	represented MI6 and the Ministry of Defense, who were both exposed by WikiLeaks
	that Julian Assange obviously set up.
	So what are the chances of Julian Assange getting a fair trial when one of the judges
	has explicit connections to organizations negatively affected by WikiLeaks?
	If you continue to disrupt the court in this way, I will have to cite you for contempt.
	You wouldn't dare.
	Well, no, I guess I wouldn't.
	Just to give you a sort of broad open take, Julian Assange is a key pivotal anti-establishment figure.
	The establishment literally is an immersive entity.
	To get any kind of fair trial, Julian Assange shouldn't be having this hearing in the UK or the US or the anglophonic world.
	He'd have to go to somewhere like Ecuador or Peru.
	Because the establishment, by its nature, controls institutions.
	That's part of what Julian Assange exposed.
	Justice and our values and principles, as conveyed to us through the legacy media, is a kind of veil, a kind of insidious fog that masks reality and distracts us from deeper truths.
	Julian Assange did incredible work in revealing to us the nature of hypocrisy and corruption when it comes to foreign wars, when it comes to corporate corruption, and now Julian Assange is having a hearing.
	The hearing is being presided over by, of course, a member of the establishment.
	Let's have a look at the difficulties that Julian Assange faces and the ridiculousness of a hearing being presided over by an establishment figure that's been personally affected almost at every turn, whose career is almost defined by not liking Julian Assange, being the person that presides over the case.
	One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange's bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and the Ministry of Defence.
	Now by the time you're watching this, the hearing may have already concluded that Julian Assange doesn't have the right to appeal, or by some miracle, that he does have the right to appeal, because they can turn these things around really quickly.
	But they more likely will take an incredible amount of time to take all the air out of it.
	What I'd like you to pay attention to is the astonishing gall of the establishment that doesn't conceal that Judge Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp at almost every turn have connections to the very kind of incidents and stories that WikiLeaks and Assange in particular revealed.
	Their hubris is so complete that they can sort of publicly declare That they've represented MI6, they've represented the police, they've represented the government, they have special clearance.
	And in a way what this shows you is the nature of the establishment.
	Not only is the establishment by its nature corrupt and self-preserving, but also it doesn't really fear that you have any power to impede it, interrupt it, or even challenge it.
	Otherwise they would surely keep the kind of things we're about to reveal secret.
	This is astonishing.
	Justice Jeremy Johnson, which is a silly name, has also been a specially vetted barrister cleared by the UK authorities to access top-secret information.
	When people talk about systemic corruption, I suppose what's in fact being discussed is the impossibility of challenging certain structures and certain systems that they're so congealed and concealed and controlled that even to penetrate them is a ridiculous and almost inconceivable task.
	If you have that kind of special clearance, if you've been to those schools and universities, if you've represented MI6 and the Ministry of Defence, how will you impartially view a figure like Julian Assange, who has, at every turn, challenged establishment authority, exposed corruption in war, exposed war crimes?
	He's not going to be able to go, no, thinking about this, we've actually been wrong.
	This is a figure that's emerging from the establishment to evaluate the interests of the establishment.
	What's being revealed by the Assange case is the intractability of the establishment and the impossibility of true justice within it.
	Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharpe, terrifying name, and now the compassionate, the friendly, the lovable, Dame Victoria Sharpe!
	Oh no!
	Get Justice Jeremy Johnson back!
	I'd fucking hate you at all!
	He's senior judge to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder.
	If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years, which you'd have to become a tortoise to serve.
	People don't live that long.
	His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington's intelligence ...and security services with whom the UK has deep relations.
	Some of their deep relations, as Edward Snowden revealed, is the sharing of private data between Five Eyes countries that includes the UK and US, which is sort of illegal, certainly against the principles of justice and clarity and transparency that they espouse.
	How is the exposure of crime being treated as criminality?
	Assange's journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments.
	He now faces a judge who has acted for and received security clearance from some of those state agencies.
	As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange's case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest.
	They're not conflicts of interest, it's the mechanic of the system.
	As they say, it's not a bug, it's a feature.
	How can he ever be the recipient of justice When the system itself functions in order to prevent that, it would mean the system breaking apart.
	It's comparable to so many arguments.
	If you wanted to repay the true cost of imperialism you'd have to dismantle the royal family, the nation.
	It's one of those issues that shows you the problem with the institutions themselves.
	That's why we are with this case because you can't have justice for Julian
	Assange without a true reckoning for the deep state, corporate corruption,
	the military industrial complex and you know of course because you watch
	our channel that these are the problems that define our age. These are
	the problems that since the various forms of incarceration of Julian Assange
	have become more and more prevalent. Think how often we're talking about
	censorship. Think how vigorously the pursuit of censorship is defining our age
	right now. Hate speech laws in Ireland, the laws that have been passed in Canada,
	the online safety bill in this country which of course is presented to us. We're
	just trying to protect children. How are you going to protect children? By
	controlling the information you have access to. What Julian Assange did is
	he punctured that facade, gave us a bunch of information so we could decide
	for ourselves whether or not we wanted to support foreign wars.
	Many people concluded that they didn't want to support foreign wars and Julian Assange went to jail for a very long time.
	Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear.
	Records show he was paid twice by the government legal department for his services in 2018.
	The sum was over £55,000.
	Imagine if this was to do with Donald Trump and Donald Trump was being adjudicated over by someone that previously worked for him.
	The legacy media would be outraged.
	Think already of what's being revealed to you just by this story.
	The BBC aren't starting going, the judge in the Julian Assange case has already previously sort of acted against Julian Assange.
	You won't see that on the BBC.
	You might see in some of their 24-hour coverage a few shots from outside their royal courts of justice.
	You might hear a pundit saying that Australia are now supporting his release.
	What you will not be able to see is how this case demonstrates the nature of intrinsic corruption between media, the state, corporations, because that would challenge the system itself.
	That's why Julian Assange is important.
	What he did was brought us to a point where we had to Re-evaluate the nature of these systems in themselves.
	Recognise, oh no, these systems are totally corrupt.
	And you all feel that now.
	That's what this new movement is about.
	It's about recognising these institutions are unreliable, whether it's the media, the judiciary, or parliamentary or congressional politics.
	There's such a requirement for reckoning that a hearing like this can only really be theatre.
	Justice Johnson became a deputy High Court judge in 2016 and a full judge in 2019.
	His biography states he has been often acting in cases involving the police and government department.
	As a barrister in 2007, he represented MI6 as an observer during the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed.
	Okay, nothing to see here!
	Johnson worked alongside Robin Tam QC, previously described by legal directories as a barrister who does an enormous amount of often sensitive work for the UK government.
	What is the work sensitive?
	If you think about it, what your government's supposed to be is you pay for them out of your taxes.
	You vote for them as your democratic right.
	And then they've got all this sensitive information that you're not allowed access to, presumably to protect you.
	That's what's declared in order to protect you.
	But I think we're all starting to realize that it's in order to control you.
	What is sensitive is if everyone knew this information, we'd have mass disobedience on our hands.
	So you better control that information.
	And if anyone ever exposes it, Do what you have to do to stop them and put them behind bars.
	Say what you have to say.
	At the time, Foreign Office sources could not recall a previous occasion when MI6 had appointed lawyers to an inquest.
	Hmm.
	MI6 was reportedly so concerned by possible revelations during the inquest that Johnson was appointed to sit in on the hearing.
	Presumably what those concerns were from MI6 was that we'd be so excited and so happy about the revelations in that inquest of the death of Diana and Dodi that we'd all just go crazy in celebrating our love for the nation that we're just like let's give these people more power!
	Let's give them more ability to censor us!
	That inquest and those concerns were about a surprise party for your birthday and you've ruined it!
	He reportedly received a brief from MI6 in advance of the inquest and was tasked with providing such assistance as the coroner may require.
	The coroner?
	Why is the coroner going to require assistance from a lawyer?
	This is a bit weird, isn't it?
	Why is a coroner whose job is to look at dead bodies and go, well, the cause of death is... I think we'll end that sentence here.
	The cause of death is whatever MI6 say cause of death is.
	Oh, yes, that's right.
	There's a lot of flashes in the tunnel.
	It's all confusing.
	Oh, look, another royal wedding.
	Johnson has also represented the UK Ministry of Defence on at least two occasions.
	I mean, if ever there was anyone that's going to have a grudge against Julian Assange, it's the person who's represented the Ministry of Defence and MO6.
	It also says here, in 1996, you lost to Julian Assange in a fun run.
	Yes, I'm still pretty pissed off about that.
	In 2013, he acted for the department during the high-profile Al Swaidi inquiry, which looked into allegations that British soldiers torture and unlawfully killed Iraqi prisoners in 2004.
	The MoD's lawyers said the Iraqi allegations were a product of lies and that those making the claims were guilty of criminal conspiracy.
	Many of the WikiLeaks revelations included improper conduct by military personnel, the illegal bombing of territories in the Middle East, torture and unusual practices by service personnel.
	We can get into the morality of individual soldiers when they are wearing wearing their fatigues and charged by their nation, that's
	an interesting thing.
	But institutional corruption and the concealment of that is a very interesting subject.
	And right in the wheelhouse of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Judge Jeremy Johnson literally
	defended those allegations.
	You couldn't have someone that has more vested interests.
	Jeremy Johnson literally has a long history of defending the establishment from the type
	of revelations that WikiLeaks made.
	It's ridiculous that you would appoint someone with so many intrinsic connections to Julian Assange and these types of stories unless what you wanted was for the appeal process to falter and be halted.
	Johnson argued there was compelling and extensive independent forensic evidence to refute the case.
	The five-year inquiry, which cost around £25 million, which you paid for, exonerated the British troops.
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	Let's get back to the story.
	Johnson was appointed by the Attorney General to be a special advocate in around 2007, declassified understands.
	These are specially vetted barristers who act for the purpose of hearing secret evidence in a closed court.
	Special advocates must undergo and obtain developed vetting, the highest level of HM government security clearance prior to their appointment, government guidance states.
	The more you learn about Justice Jeremy Johnson, the more he begins to sound a bit like Pulp Fiction's Winston Wolfe.
	I'm Winston Wolfe.
	I solve problems.
	This is the person you call in when the establishment has a problem with a dissident, or when the establishment is about to be exposed as being incredibly corrupt.
	Uh-oh!
	Get Judge Jeremy Johnson in.
	He's had the highest level of special clearance.
	This is the establishment boy.
	If we don't call on him now, we're in serious trouble.
	That's the person that will be sitting and going, hmm, Julian Assange, Should we just let him loose and send a message to other independent journalists that you're free to analyze establishment activity and corruption and the influence of corporations over the government and the activities of the deep state and the level of spying on ordinary citizens and the exploitation of military personnel that drives them to commit crimes on behalf of their nation?
	Should we let this guy free or what?
	Or should we put him in prison for 175 years and send a clear message to anyone who's thinking of attacking the establishment that this is what happens to you.
	Keep.
	Your.
	Mouth.
	Shut.
	Whether you're a citizen, or a journalist, or an activist, or whoever you are.
	We got a machine, we got tools to silence and control you.
	I wonder how this hearing's gonna go?
	Developed vetting is required for individuals having frequent and uncontrolled access to top-secret assets or require any access to top-secret codeword material.
	In 2016, Johnson acted as a special advocate in the case of Abdel Hakim Belhage, a Libyan national who accused the UK government and MI6 of participating in kidnapping him and his pregnant wife Fatima Bouchard.
	The UK government later apologized for its actions that contributed to Belhage and Bouchard's rendition, detention and torture.
	We'd like to apologise for kidnapping you and torturing you and your pregnant wife as well.
	And I hope you'll accept this apology on behalf of the establishment.
	Hopefully that's an end to the matter.
	No need.
	We don't bear grudges.
	Julian Assange has been doing some journalism.
	Put him in prison for longer than a person can live for!
	WikiLeaks has published sensitive documents on the US and Britain's use of extraordinary rendition during the War on Terror.
	So once again, exactly the type of things that WikiLeaks exposed.
	It's ridiculous, you couldn't have someone more likely to view this from a pejorative and prejudiced perspective.
	It's like having Jackie Onassis adjudicate on the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.
	Well actually, thinking about it, maybe the CIA- SHUT UP!
	The lead judge in Assange's extradition case at the High Court is Dame Victoria Sharpe, the president of the King's Bench Division, who was appointed in 2019 by then Prime Minister Theresa May.
	Declassified has shown that Sharpe has family links to the Conservative Party.
	I mean, of course, what is the establishment?
	It's not going to be that you have High Court judges and politicians that all, all right, I didn't know you did that.
	This is the establishment.
	What we are discussing is establishment corruption and the impossibility of exposing that corruption and the consequences if you do.
	Sharpe and Johnson have adjudicated on other high-profile legal cases.
	In 2022 they dismissed a claim for judicial review regarding bulk data collection and sharing by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
	Another literal WikiLeaks case!
	These are the people that have sort of most To lose!
	That's very similar to Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA data capturing the Five Eyes nation, sharing and bulk capturing our information, storing it to use at a later date should you ever become a dissident or enemy of the state.
	To have people with such strong affiliations and affinity preside over this case is ridiculous.
	It's beyond a kangaroo call.
	It's an absolute mockery.
	It's like having Darth Vader and Voldemort presiding over a case that involved Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker.
	Stealing lightsabers!
	UK approval for Assange's extradition to the US, which flows from Washington's attempt to punish and silence Assange, has been given by successive Home Secretaries.
	Johnson represented the Home Office in 2012 in a case relating to an asylum claim by an immigrant who had previously been subject to torture in Angola.
	The Home Secretary at this time was Theresa May, who as Prime Minister would authorise the operation to seize Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019.
	He also has ties to Theresa May.
	In a sense, what's being tried here is the system itself.
	And the system can't find the system itself not guilty.
	It'll be like some kind of reverse Skynet where it'd have to go, hold on a minute, everything we've been doing for the last 20 years is totally corrupt.
	We're going to have to stop it.
	Because this decision may already have been made, you might be watching this and already know that Assange has been denied the right to appeal.
	Or perhaps by some miracle he's been granted the right to an appeal.
	But that would lead me to conclude that that will be the point in which the appeal leads to.
	Oh yeah, we are going to extradite him.
	Because what the case shows is that what poses for government is essentially a kind of theatre that masks What poses for media is essentially a propaganda messaging system that amplifies the interests of the powerful.
	What poses as a deep state that's meant to protect our interests and save us from the threat of extraterrestrial or at least international malice is at least in significant part a deep state apparatus for the control of the domestic population.
	How can a hearing ultimately say Julian Assange is really just a journalist and a hero.
	He hasn't had a trial.
	It's ridiculous that we'd extradite him.
	Let him go back to Australia or to some neutral territory where he can live out the rest of his life and carry on with his good work exposing corruption.
	Because it wouldn't just be releasing Assange.
	It would be recognizing the depth of its own corruption.
	And how can it do that without dismantling itself live in those courts?
	Johnson has also acted for the Metropolitan Police in a number of controversial cases regarding political policing and alleged illegal surveillance.
	The Met would go on to lead Operation Pelican, the secret scheme to seize Assange from his asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.
	I went to visit Julian Assange when he was in that embassy, which in itself was a peculiar concoction.
	The idea that that was a space in which he was free from the clutches of apparent justice and imperialist interests.
	What's peculiar about all of this is that at every point where you assess the career of Justice Jeremy Johnson to a degree Dame Victoria Sharpe, you see, and what else would you see, attachment and affinity with establishment interests.
	How could it be otherwise?
	They are in attendance by virtue of the fact that they are part of the establishment.
	They are complicit in the events and actions that have led to Julian Assange being in this position.
	So how can they objectively assess a situation that they either tangentially or directly created?
	Johnson also represented West Midlands Police in the inquest over the Healesborough football stadium disaster and the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.
	The latter resulted in six men being wrongfully jailed for killing 21 people by a bomb planted by the IRA.
	The Hillsborough football disaster and the jailing of the Birmingham Six in British cultural history represent two of the great stains on the establishment.
	The wrongful arrest conviction and imprisonment of innocent people for the crime of being From Ireland and the denial and accusation of wrongdoing of people for the crime of being football fans.
	In a way, what this case reveals is the establishment is an edifice which protects the powerful from ordinary people like us.
	And you might say, oh, you've got that leather jacket on and you're famous.
	Well, believe me, I'm on your side of the line.
	We are all on that side of the line.
	There are a set of interests that will be protected at all costs.
	Julian Assange's crime was to expose The idea that a nation like ours or a nation like the United States could give a fair hearing to a candidate, a character like Julian Assange, is ridiculous because it would represent the unravelling of their entire raison d'etre.
	It would represent a kind of mea culpa of such magnitude that the day after that hearing you'd have to say, well we're gonna have to be honest, elections don't work either.
	We're gonna have to be honest, our entire parliamentary system is a We're gonna have to be honest, the ascent of globalism has meant that ordinary people don't have any real power in their own countries.
	And the only power you do have, actually, is the power to comply.
	And if you don't comply, then you will be in serious trouble.
	And the crime that Julian Assange committed was the crime of non-compliance.
	And that's why he's in Belmarsh.
	That's why he's having this hearing.
	That's why it's likely this hearing will fail.
	That's why it's likely he'll be extradited.
	And that's why it's likely that unless we do something about it, which means unprecedented non-compliance, Julian Assange will be punished, not for a crime, but for exposing crime.
	And that is what's truly criminal.
	But that's just what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the chat.
	See you in a second!
	Thanks for choosing Fox News.
	The dude.
	No, he's the fucking dude!
	Hello there, welcome back you firewalkers and freedom fighters.
	55 fight for right.
	RUSSEL!
	This is in caps, of course, in the rumble chat.
	RUSSEL!
	Why are you continually stating Assange will be extradited?
	What's the angle?
	Well, because the United States are trying to extradite him, and I don't want that to happen, so we're, in a sense, trying to present arguments for why that oughtn't happen, the injustices and the significance of Julian Assange's case, not only to him as an individual and a human being, but for press freedom more broadly, deep state, Transparency and clarity, which I know sounds somewhat oxymoronic, if not entirely moronic.
	And indeed, the ongoing censorship industrial complex.
	So that's why, mate, it's not like I've got an angle.
	What I'm trying to do is sort of, I suppose, participate in the campaign for justice for Julian Assange.
	But if you've got any more questions, send them.
	Send all your questions.
	That is the point of us being on Rumble.
	We celebrate your free speech, if not your repetitiveness.
	Be novel in there.
	Be awakened.
	It's a civic and global duty for all of us.
	I'm joined now by Kristian Hrafnsson, who is Icelandic, and if I've mispronounced his name, there could be an axe coming into frame any moment from a Viking lord.
	Kristian, you are currently the Editor-in-Chief at WikiLeaks, carrying on the great work of Julian Assange.
	Thank you for joining us today.
	Thanks for having me.
	Kristen, how do you feel that the hearing went?
	We've spoken at various points now to Stella, to Julian's brother, and now to Chris Hedges, who had a sense that there was a sort of insidious and perfidious ambience in the place, that the prosecution was tainted and anachronistic and clenched to the 2010 perception.
	What was your perception from inside the hearing?
	How do you feel it went?
	Well, I think it went much better than I had expected.
	What we've had in the courts here in England up till now is either a total disinterest by the judges or hostility towards Julian and Julian's lawyers.
	Now, at least, the judges seem to be awake.
	They had some attention and interest in the case, and they did ask a question, and asked for more documents to be submitted, which is a new thing.
	And the interesting thing is that they were asking very pointed, sharp questions at the lawyers for the Americans, and they didn't have any good answer for it.
	And they were, it seemed, I don't know if it's genuine, whether it's a show, it remains to be seen, but at least for the first time, it seems to be getting through there, you know.
	If you want examples, I can give you a couple of them.
	Yeah, I would actually.
	One example of a question that made you feel, oh, they're legitimately interested in documentation that legitimizes this extradition process.
	Well, I mean, the judges wanted to know, and asked very specifically from the American lawyer, So, is it possible that Julian is extradited and they add on charges against him which might actually include the death penalty?
	Is it possible?
	And the American lawyer had to acknowledge that yes, it is possible.
	And on other occasions, they were deconstructing points of law when it comes to extradition treaty and local
	laws here, where the lawyers from the Americas have been cherry picking and creating some word salad that doesn't
	make any rational sense.
	And it was deconstructed.
	And they were actually pushed into a corner.
	And it was not our lawyers who were doing it, but one of the
	So, a positive sign, but, you know.
	That sounds like what you're describing is the squeaking of the wheels of justice finally turning, and possibly favorably.
	That's very encouraging to hear, because there have been points where it seemed implausible that the establishment, whether that's in the form of the prosecution representatives, Or these members of the judiciary would be able to apply any objectivity.
	We pointed out in our presentation just a moment ago before our interview commenced that Judge Jeremy Johnson has previously acted as a defendant for both MI6 and the Ministry of Defence was, you know, during the famous Hillsborough case in this country, the injustices against the Birmingham 6, the innocent Irish civilians that were incarcerated incorrectly and improperly.
	So, I suppose, and for a person like me that doesn't understand the complexity of the case in the way that you do, it just seemed like what was being revealed was the intractability of the establishment, so it's very heartening for you to explain that at least intuitively and experientially it seemed like there were some new avenues being explored.
	Yeah, well...
	Before I get my hopes up, I've become cynical after being with Wikileaks and Julian and he's a good friend of mine.
	We've been working together since 2010 and I was with him throughout all this period.
	And hope is a word that I don't rely on.
	It has to be action.
	So I'm always cynical when I come to points like this.
	But one possibility is there, because the entire process has been politicized.
	So let's think, what could actually benefit the political powers in this country, here in the UK, and the United States?
	Well, at least to prolong this case for another year, to keep Julian in prison for one more year.
	That might be the thinking, that they will actually grant him leave to appeal on a couple of points, just so they can keep him in Belmarsh prison for at least another year.
	So, that is one scenario.
	That would fit the interests of the politicians in this country and in the US, because that would keep Julian in prison until after the election in both countries, wouldn't it?
	So, he'll kick the can down the road and make it someone else's problem in there?
	Uniparty, globalist establishment world.
	But of course one of the things that's been interesting about this case has been how successive American administrations have broadly pursued the same line when it comes to Assange and one can understand why that would be given that some of the revelations particularly embarrass the Democrat Party.
	It was Trump that charged him, Biden pursuing his extradition, under Obama this process began and it doesn't seem that other than Bobby Kennedy, there's any notable political figure that, although there is at least in Australia now, it seems, an appetite for justice.
	Do you think that there has to be a degree of what we might call legacy media or mainstream political support in order for Julian's case to move forward?
	Well, there's indication that they are actually waking up to the severity of this case for them, and the legacy media and journalists in general, they are probably only waking up when their self-interest is involved, because this is about their existential platform to be journalists, you know, in the legacy world as well.
	So, we see an indication there is more interest and it's almost like comical at some time.
	I mean, I saw CNN yesterday like flossing up this big revelation.
	Wow, it was claimed in court that the CIA was plotting to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange.
	I mean, how old is that story?
	But they were just reinventing it and just seeing it for the first time.
	And speaking to each other there about that issue, you know, we have to investigate that further.
	Well, good for you, but you might have done that, you know, way back when it was published.
	What was it, two years ago?
	But they were treating it like it was breaking news.
	Yes, we're fascinated to watch legacy media within our organization and the childlike wonder with which they pour over information regarding, for example, the pandemic period and various improprieties that have been conducted during that time with a kind of naivety and wonder that would be magnificent if it were displayed in one of my children, but not so awesome when demonstrated by the legacy media.
	Now, one of the things that the Robust and strident, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges talked about is the difficulties that whistleblowers now face.
	As you are Editor-in-Chief in WikiLeaks, has it become difficult, impossible, less rare to receive significant leaks?
	We were talking briefly about Vault 7 and the 40-year sentence handed out to the dude that made those.
	Do you get leaks these days that embarrass these powerful institutions, Kristen?
	I mean, explosive huge leaks have come a few years apart at least, but the leaks are still happening, which is extraordinary, because people do have conscience, and they do sense that they have an obligation, some of them, to come forth.
	So there are still leaks, which is extraordinary when you think about the total crackdown that have been on leakers, and they've been thrown in jail for decades these days.
	And being hammered with the sledgehammer of the Espionage Act in the US now.
	We said early on when that started, under President Obama, who actually is on record saying when he was campaigning before 2008, that we should be celebrating whistleblowers.
	Yes.
	But after he became president, under no administration were more whistleblowers Pursued by them under the Espionage Act than in any other presidency in the history since 1917 combined.
	So he was the whistleblower hammer.
	They are still coming forward, and material is still being exposed.
	And that is a comfort, because people are courageous, and courage does spread.
	I haven't lost hope, but given the repercussions for an individual, because it can be absolutely destructive and destroy the entire life of an individual as a whistleblower, I'm amazed that it's still happening.
	Kristen, I can see why you would become cynical in some of your attitudes but I'm very grateful that you've remained optimistic in your attitudes and in the work that you continue to do at WikiLeaks.
	Thank you so much for joining us today and the best of luck to you and of course to Julian always.
	Thanks for having me.
	You're going to love our show tomorrow.
	I hope you've enjoyed our coverage of the Assange hearing.
	Let us know in the rumble chat what you thought about it and please feel free to share this information with whoever you share your life with and remember to sign the various petitions in your country that support Assange's right to an appeal in this country and to a fair trial more broadly.
	Tomorrow we're being joined by Dr. Pierre Khoury.
	He has got some fantastic insights over the course of the pandemic period, how he went from being a lauded academic and physician to being declared a pariah.
	Also, the biggest COVID study in the last five years has now been conducted and the results are embarrassing for the legacy media.
	And as I was just discussing with Kristen, in fact, it's wonderful to see some mainstream media reporting on that story that demonstrates, in a sense, a kind of awe and wonder as truth continues to emerge.
	We'll be speaking to Andrew Bridgen and Meryl Nass on Friday as well.
	If you haven't yet become an Awakened Wonder, please click the red button to support our work.
	You get access to additional content as well as being part of a movement that opposes the very kind of injustices that we are here to oppose today outside the somewhat ironically named Royal Courts of Justice.
	Let us pray together that justice emerges in the case of Julian Assange.
	Thank you very much for joining us today.
	Join us at the same day tomorrow and become an awakened wonder like Callan and Hotniks2323 and SizzikyuYibu and Coats4 and SacredPotato11.
	Join us tomorrow.
	Please, all of you, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
	Until then, if you can, stay free.
	Change.
	Many switch it.
	Switch on, switch off.
	Many switch it.
	Switch on, switch off.
	Many switch it.
	Switch on, switch off.
	Many switch it.
	Switch on.
	Switch off.
	Man, you're switching.
	Switch on.

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