Chelsea Manning will go free. Now, about Julian Assange's extradition ...
UPDATE: Jan. 18, 2017, 4:34 p.m. EST
A lawyer for Julian Assange told The Hill that Manning's clemency did not meet the requirements for the extradition agreement.
WikiLeaks made a big offer just five days ago. If President Barack Obama commuted Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange would allow himself to be sent back to the U.S. to face charges for disseminating classified information.
That offer is being put to the test. On Tuesday afternoon, news broke that Obama had used his power as president to release Manning, a former army intelligence analyst, from prison as of May 17, 2017.
WikiLeaks had made the offer in a tweet, which remains up.
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On Tuesday evening, WikiLeaks tweeted that Assange's UK lawyer Melinda Taylor has said "everything that he has said he's standing by" regarding the extradition "deal."
The quote appears to have emerged from a conversation between Taylor and the Associated Press in which she said WikiLeaks remains unsure whether the American government has requested Assange's extradition from the UK to the U.S.
WikiLeaks added that Assange was "confident of winning any fair trial in the US."
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If Assange does indeed allow himself to be extradited, he will face charges surrounding his organization's acquisition of documents from Manning, who leaked a massive trove of government documents to WikiLeaks. Manning was found guilty of the act and sentenced to 35 years in prison. She has served nearly seven years of her sentence.
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Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks acknowledged the clemency on Twitter, but did not comment on Assange.
In August, a lawyer for WikiLeaks claimed in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch that "there is no legitimate basis for continuing the [Justice] Department's lengthy criminal investigation of Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks," on the basis that it did not break any laws and provided a public good in informing people of important issues.
An email sent to the WikiLeaks lawyer was not immediately returned.
UPDATE: Jan. 18, 2017, 2:04 p.m. AEDT New tweets added from @WikiLeaks regarding extradition.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
