‘You alone can SAVE HIS LIFE’: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden urges Trump to grant clemency to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

“Mr. President, for those who grant just one act of clemency throughout your time in workplace, please: Free Julian Assange,” Snowden tweeted. “You alone can save his life.”

The request got here as Assange sits in a UK jail awaiting a choose’s ruling, scheduled for January, on his extradition to the US to face an 18-count indictment for alleged espionage and conspiracy to commit hacking. If convicted, he might face a US jail sentence of as much as 175 years. He was arrested in London in April 2019 after taking refuge within the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years.

Assange revealed hundreds of leaked categorized paperwork in 2010 and 2011 exposing US army wrongdoing. The 48-year-old is reportedly ill after years of confinement. Greater than 60 medical doctors from eight completely different nations wrote an open letter late final yr saying they had been involved that he might die in custody if he isn’t moved from the high-security Belmarsh Jail to a hospital. Their request was denied.

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Snowden, the previous CIA and NSA contractor who revealed mass surveillance of Individuals by US intelligence companies, was granted everlasting residency in Russia in October after taking refuge within the nation since 2013. He is been charged with two counts of espionage and theft of presidency property. Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the US, beforehand granted Snowden momentary asylum.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, denied Snowden’s request for a pardon. However Trump, who mentioned in 2013 that Snowden was a “spy who needs to be executed,” has reconsidered that place in latest months. Trump advised reporters in August that he would contemplate pardoning Snowden.

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Individuals from each side of the US political divide have urged Trump to pardon Snowden and Assange. US Consultant Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) final month renewed her requires the president to pardon each males, saying they uncovered the criminality of the deep state at nice private sacrifice.

After Gabbard was attacked for supporting him, Snowden himself famous that the general public has turned in opposition to politicians who smear whistleblowers.

Trump could have solely till January 20 to take motion except he is profitable in getting the courts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s media-declared election victory. Podcast host Jen Perelman, a Florida Democrat who ran unsuccessfully to take Debbie Wasserman-Shultz’s congressional seat, recommended that Snowden’s prospects may very well be worse below the following administration. “Is censorship going to be worse below Biden?” she requested.

Snowden earlier revealed that again in 2013 then-vice president Biden was calling nations world wide to warn them that in the event that they grant asylum to the whistleblower, they are going to be confronted with “penalties” from Washington.

Different observers praised Snowden for urging Trump to think about Assange’s case even earlier than his personal. “How merciful and selfless of you,” one commenter mentioned. One other mentioned, “The folks of America and the world will likely be without end grateful to the courageous reality tellers, be they whistleblowers or trustworthy journalists, even when they do not all understand it but.”

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