Gabbard Says She Would Drop All Charges Against Assange And Snowden By Caitlin Johnstone!!!
(2019-05-14 at 12:03:15 )

Gabbard Says She Would Drop All Charges Against Assange And Snowden by Caitlin Johnstone

In midst of an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience, Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said that if elected president she would drop all charges against National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

"What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden?" Rogan asked in the latter part of the episode.

"As far as dropping the charges?" Gabbard asked.

"If you are president of the world right now, what do you do?"

"Yeah, dropping the charges," Gabbard replied.

Rogan noted that Swedens preliminary investigation of rape allegations has just been re-opened, saying the United States government can not stop that, and Ms Gabbard said as president she would drop the United States charges leveled against Mr. Assange by the Trump administration.

"Yeah," Ms Gabbard said when asked to clarify if she was also saying that she would give Edward Snowden a presidential pardon, adding, "And I think we have got to address why he did things the way that he did them. And you hear the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional rights and liberties.

Period.

There was not a channel for that to happen in a real way, and that is why they ended up taking the path that they did, and suffering the consequences."

This came at the end of a lengthy discussion about WikiLeaks and the dangerous legal precedent that the Donald Trump administration is setting for press freedoms by prosecuting Mr. Assange, as well as the revelations about National Security Agency surveillance and what can be done to roll back those unchecked surveillance powers.

"What happened with Mr. Assanges arrest and all the stuff that just went down I think poses a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech," Gabbard said.

"We look at what happened under the previous administration, under President Obama.

You know, they were trying to find ways to go after Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks, but ultimately they chose not to seek to extradite him or charge him, because they recognized what a slippery slope that begins when you have a government in a position to levy criminal charges and consequences against someone who is publishing information or saying things that the government does not want you to say, and sharing information the government does not want you to share.

And so the fact that the President Trump administration has chosen to ignore that fact, to ignore how important it is that we uphold our freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and go after him, it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishers.

And you can look to those in traditional media and also those in new media, and also every one of us as United States of Americans.

It was a kind of a warning call, saying Look what happened to this guy. It could happen to you. It could happen to any one of us."

Ms Gabbard discussed Mike Pompeos arbitrary designation of WikiLeaks as a hostile non-state intelligence service, the fact that James Clapper lied to Congress about National Security Agency surveillance as Director of National Intelligence yet suffered no consequences and remains a respected TV pundit, and the opaque and unaccountable nature of FISA warrants.

Some other noteworthy parts of Ms Gabbards JRE appearance for people who do not have time to watch the whole thing, with hyperlinks to the times in the video:

-Mr. Rogan gets Ms Gabbard talking in depth about what Bashar al-Assad was actually like when she met him and what he said to her, which I do not think I have ever seen anyone bother to do before.

-The two discuss President Eisenhowers famous speech warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and actually pause their dialogue to watch a good portion of it. Ms Gabbard points out that in the original draft of the speech, President Eisenhower had intended to call it the "congressional-military-industrial complex".

-Good discussion on internet censorship and the dangers of allowing monopolistic Silicon Valley corporations to control public speech, then later discussing the possibility of breaking up these corporations or treating them as public utilities.

-Mr. Rogan asks Ms Gabbard what she thinks happens to United States presidents that causes them to fail to enact their campaign promises and capitulate to the will of the warmongering establishment, and what as president she will do to avoid the same fate.

All presidential candidates should have to answer this question.

-Mr. Rogan asks Gabbard how she will stand against the billionaires for the United States of American people without getting assassinated.

All presidential candidates should have to answer this question as well.

I honestly think the entire United States of American political system would be better off if the phoney debate stage format were completely abandoned and presidential candidates just talked one-on-one with Joe Rogan for two and a half hours instead.

Cut through all the vapid posturing and the fake questions about nonsense nobody cares about and get them to go deep with a normal human being who smokes pot and curses and does sports commentary for cage fighting.

Mr. Rogan asked Ms Gabbard a bunch of questions that real people are interested in, in a format where she was encouraged to relax out of her standard politicians posture and discuss significant ideas sincerely and spontaneously.

It was a good discussion with an interesting political figure and I am glad it is already racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".