Following the British government's approval last month of his extradition to the U.S., Wikileaks founder Julian Assange today filed an appeal to London's High Court. The U.S. government hopes to prosecute Assange for publishing leaked evidence of misconduct by U.S. forces abroad.
The High Court in London confirmed to the BBC an application by Mr Assange has been submitted. The Australian is wanted by American authorities over documents leaked in 2010 and 2011, which the US says broke the law and endangered lives.The documents are related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Assange's choices when credibly accused of sexual assault put him in this mess, and his use of Wikileaks to help Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election drained off whatever journalistic credibility he had, outside of a threadbare cult of contrarians and maverick bloggers. Which is a problem, because the legal theory being used to prosecute him for "espionage" is bullshit and the press has absolutely no reason to think schedenfreude will taste better than that precedent.