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Pentagon Papers Attorney: U.S. Likely Already Has Secret Indictment Against WikiLeaks Julian Assange

2,401 views · Published 17 May 2013 · 2:07 · Indexed 20 October 2026

Channel: Democracy Now! · 2013 · News & Politics

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Watch the full interview with James Goodale on Democracy Now! at http://owl.li/l8IRD.  James Goodale, the was general counsel at The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers crackdown. Goodale is a leading legal expert on the First Amendment and has just published a new book, "Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles."

JAMES GOODALE: After the Pentagon Papers ended, which was a case about censorship, Mitchell, who was Nixon's attorney general, got very excited about prosecuting The New York Times. People have forgotten about that. So he convened a grand jury in Boston, because there was some evidence that the Pentagon Papers had been circulated in the antiwar community before they were published by The New York Times. And the theory was that the New York Times reporter conspired with those antiwar protesters, and he was going to indict them for conspiracy.

So, now, fast-forward. What is Obama doing? He's convened a grand jury. We haven't heard about it; I think it's still there. I think it may have even indicted Assange in secrecy. But what's the charge? Conspiracy. Well, we don't expect our listeners to be lawyers and jump up and down when they hear the word "conspiracy." I just want to tell you in the audience, it's very easy to prove conspiracy, very hard to prove espionage under the Espionage Act. So what Obama is doing is doing an end run and trying to get an easy case against Assange, after he's convicted Manning. It's easy to convict Manning, OK? So that easy conviction then becomes the basis for the agreement for Assange.

So, my book is meant to be a clarion call to the journalist community: Wake up! There's danger out there. You may not like Assange, but wake up! The First Amendment is really going to be damaged, if Obama goes forward. And as I said at the beginning of the show, if he does and succeeds, he will have succeeded where Nixon failed.

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