RFK Jr. hails Assange plea deal, calls for statue in DC in his image as a ‘civics lesson’ on ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored’
Independent presidential aspirant Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lauded WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release from prison and called for a statue to be erected in his image.
Kennedy, 70, who had long been a proponent of pardoning Assange, also re-upped his well-worn push for him and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be pardoned, while upholding the pair as models for the country.
“We should not just release Julian Assange and Edwin (sic) Snowden, but … we should build a monument to them in Washington as a civics lesson to the American public about the importance of free speech,” Kennedy contended on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” Tuesday.
“A transparent government is the essence of democracy. That’s what Julian Assange did for us,” he said, noting that the government will “constantly try to increase its power by reducing transparency.”
The White House hopeful conveyed a similar sentiment on social media Monday shortly after news broke of the agreement between Assange and the US government.
Per the terms of the agreement, Assange, 52, was set to plead guilty to violations of the Espionage Act and enjoy credit for the five-year stint he served in the United Kingdom, court documents revealed.
Assange had spent about seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. After his asylum was revoked, he was imprisoned by the British in 2019. The US had sought his extradition.
The US government had Assange in its crosshairs for publishing unvarnished documents and material during the so-called War on Terror. This included footage of a 2007 helicopter attack, in which US forces killed 11 people and wounded children in Baghdad.
“The odd thing about Julian Assange[‘s] imprisonment is that the American press did not rise up in outrage and indignation to object on this,” Kennedy mused.
Morgan noted some of the criticisms against Assange, namely that he published raw material on WikiLeaks — files that did not contain redactions of sensation methods and sourcing.
“I would want journalists to exercise some discretion if, for example, there are confidential sources in other countries whose names are exposed [and it] could put their lives in danger,” Kennedy conceded when pressed.
Kennedy stressed that there are civil lawsuits that could’ve been used instead of prosecution to remedy the situation.
The scion bemoaned how Assange entered a guilty plea in the first place and noted that Assange’s health was “shaky.” Assange’s brother previously divulged that his health was “deteriorating.”
“He shouldn’t have been prosecuted. And you know, I’m disappointed that he had to make this guilty plea,” he said.
Hearkening back to the Pentagon Papers, Chelsea Manning and other episodes of whistleblowing, Kennedy underscored that “the government has an interest in lying to us.”
Kennedy ripped into the media and suggested that its lost its way of being a proper counterweight to the government by being too willing to keep its secrets hidden.
“One of the things that’s happened with the press is that they no longer do that job. They’ve become propagandists for government, rather than speaking truth to power. They’ve become stenographers and propagandists for government,” he said.
“We saw this during COVID. We saw it during the Iraq War,” he went on. “It almost always is a bad idea for the press to keep the government secrets.”
