Joe Biden struck Julian Assange deal with one eye on the polls

The plea deal that sees Julian Assange freed is underpinned by a tectonic shift in global politics and the immediate concerns of a US president fighting for re-election.

The plea deal that let Julian Assange walk out of Belmarsh Prison after more than a decade in legal limbo was announced suddenly but was months in the making.

The agreement is underpinned by a tectonic shift in global politics and the immediate concerns of a US president fighting for re-election.

As vice-president to Barack Obama, Joe Biden witnessed first hand the internal debate at the White House and the initial decision not to charge Assange following the publication of confidential military records related to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More than a decade on, Biden reluctantly inherited the Assange saga again after Donald Trump’s administration did not prosecute him in 2019. With Biden and Trump again locked in another close election battle, the deal rids the president of a diplomatic headache and could reap rewards with voters.

Many Democrats still blame Assange for Hillary Clinton’s defeat to Trump in 2016, accusing him of colluding with Russian intelligence when WikiLeaks published thousands of emails hacked from the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

But the political winds have shifted during Assange’s 12 years of incarceration. Bipartisan support for a deal to free him has grown in Congress, after an unlikely alliance of left-wing Democrats and hard-right Republicans lobbied Biden and the Justice Department to drop the 18 charges he was indicted on in 2019.

That consensus on Capitol Hill, and the fig leaf of a guilty plea by Assange, could shield the president from blowback in the crucial final months of the election campaign.

The driving force behind the deal, however, has been quiet but intensive diplomacy from Assange’s native Australia. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has raised the case with Biden, capitalising on stronger ties with Washington as his country emerges as a pivotal national security ally to the US against the rising threat from China.

Julian Assange and Kevin Rudd, Australian Ambassador to US the arrive at the courthouse. Picture: Getty Images.

The Aukus security partnership between the US, UK and Australia is now a pillar of Washington’s global defence posture towards Beijing, but the stalemate over Assange has remained a snag in the relationship. Albanese has exploited that political leverage since his election in 2022, lobbying publicly for an end to Assange’s ordeal.

Albanese backed a motion in parliament calling for the return of the WikiLeaks founder earlier this year. Behind closed doors, Australian diplomats stepped up their efforts to broker a deal.

Biden let slip in May that he was “considering” dropping the American pursuit of Assange. But the US authorities remained insistent on a plea deal that would not represent a total capitulation.

Biden’s overriding priority is his re-election campaign, and the prospect of Assange’s extradition to the US as the election campaign reached its climax would only have alienated more young and libertarian voters.

The general election may also have been a factor in the timing, said Geoffrey Robertson KC, a former lawyer for Assange. He said that American prosecutors had “thrown in the towel” because “they couldn’t rely on a Labour government to put him on a plane”.

The Times