Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told a British court today that he was promised a pardon by President Donald Trump. Assange made the assertion while appearing at a pretrial hearing teleconference.

Courtroom reporter James Doleman broke the news on Twitter. According to Doleman, Assange said that the pardon was conditional on him publicly announcing that Russia had nothing to do with the attack on the 2016 election.

Breaking, at pre-trial hearing for Julian Assange a court has heard that he will be calling a witness who will allege he was offered a pardon by the US government, if he would say Russia was not involved in the leak of DNC documents during the 2006 election.

— James Doleman (@jamesdoleman) February 19, 2020

While considering whether to believe Assange, it is good to keep in mind that in 2017, a The Wall Street Journal report said that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) attempted to broker a deal for a pardon or clemency between the White House and Assange. Rohrabacher was the Republican California congressman way ahead of his time, having been on Putin’s payroll for years and years, before Trump even considered running for president, and before Putin decided to just put the whole party on the payroll.

The deal never went through.

Back in 2017, Trump probably still wondered whether or not he actually could get away with pardoning whomever he felt like on any given day. Those days are gone, and if Assange wants a pardon in exchange for a lie, he best start lying and stop telling this “truth-sounding” stuff.

Assange knows he’s got a problem. Yes, he could almost surely get a Trump pardon for telling the lies Trump needs him to tell. But that’s not going to help him with his charges in the U.K.. Even though Assange’s U.K. charges aren’t that serious, they are the charges that are seriously keeping him in jail right now. It is conceivable that Assange thinks his best ticket to freedom is to spill the beans on Russia and Trump.

On the other hand, those beans are known to carry polonium, and if spilled all over the place, one might get exposed.

Assange really doesn’t have a lot of good options right now, which might be why he’s telling the truth … and I think he is actually telling the truth. I bet he was promised a pardon for stating that Russia didn’t hack anything in 2016.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom