Attorney General Jeff Session is reportedly prepping to throw the book at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for allegedly aiding Edward Snowden in disclosing a trove of classified documents. Until now, bringing charges against Wikileaks had given Justice Department officials heartburn because other media outlets had similarly published stolen materials. But new revelations about Snowden have been accompanied by an attorney general who also might be willing to widen the scope of such prosecutions to other news outlets, writes ThinkProgress.
During a Friday morning CNN appearance, Sessions was asked by anchor Kate Bolduan whether “folks should be concerned that this would also open up news organizations like CNN and the New York Times to prosecution.”
Sessions wouldn’t rule anything out.
“That’s speculative, and I’m not able to comment on that,” he replied.
Sessions’ CNN comments come a day after he said the arrest of Assange is a “priority” during a news conference.
That’s quite a shift for the Justice Department, not to mention the administration of a pr*sident who is so keen on WikiLeaks that he name checked the organization 164 times in the final month of the election. It has also startled free speech advocates, who say there’s nothing wrong with publishing information that’s accurate.
Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, referenced that fact during an interview with CNN, saying, “Never in the history of this country has a publisher been prosecuted for presenting truthful information to the public.”
Jeff Sessions appears to be ready to test that proposition—and, if it works, he isn’t willing to rule out casting a wider net. That’s pretty scary given Trump’s obsession with leakers.