Eric Zuesse<\/p>\n
According to the Wall Street Journal<\/i>, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California spoke by phone on September 13th with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, aiming to transmit to President Trump, from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, a trade of \u2018proof\u2019 of Russian non-involvement in the transmission to the public of internal Democratic Party information during the 2016 Presidential contest with Hillary Clinton, in return for the U.S. Government\u2019s stopping its efforts to prosecute Mr. Assange. Assange wanted finally to become freed from his years-long virtual house-arrest inside Ecuador\u2019s London Embassy, by the United States Government efforts to force him to be tried in U.S. courts. So, he wants to offer this trade in which Assange would provide to the White House physical \u2018proof\u2019 that Russia had nothing to do with the Democratic Party leaks from (or what Russia\u2019s enemies call \u2018hacks\u2019 into) Democratic Party computers, which produced the revelations which Hillary Clinton says cost her the 2016 election.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the WSJ<\/i> report, General Kelly refused to inform President Trump of the offer.<\/span><\/p>\n The news-report was published on Friday night, September 15th, in the Wall Street Journal<\/i>, and headlined \u201cGOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia: California\u2019s Dana Rohrabacher asks for pardon of Julian Assange in return for evidence Russia wasn\u2019t source of hacked emails\u201d<\/span><\/a>. It said: \u201cMr. Kelly didn\u2019t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher\u2019s message, and Mr. Trump doesn\u2019t know the details of the proposed deal.\u201d However, the news-report didn\u2019t make clear whether Mr. Trump is even aware that Congressman Rohrabacher had attempted to communicate to the President the offer that Mr. Assange was wanting to communicate. Perhaps if Mr. Trump reads the Wall Street Journal<\/i>, he\u2019ll learn that Mr. Assange had wanted to offer this deal.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the WSJ\u2019<\/i>s report, Congressman Rohrabacher was apparently so desperate to communicate Mr. Assange\u2019s offer to the President, that Rohrabacher even asked Kelly if Rohrabacher would be allowed to communicate the offer to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, an anti-Russia hardliner, for transmission through Pompeo, to the President. Apparently, Mr. Kelly stovepipes to the President only information that Kelly wants the President to know, but Trump can, on his own, learn of other information if he sees or hears it in the newsmedia.<\/span><\/p>\n The WSJ\u2019<\/i>s report also noted the background of the alleged Assange offer:<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Rohrabacher, who has long been a pro-Russia voice in Congress, traveled to London in August to meet with Mr. Assange, who has been living in Ecuador\u2019s embassy since 2012 to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden <\/i>on allegations of sexual assault<\/i><\/span><\/a>. Mr. Rohrabacher\u2019s travel wasn\u2019t paid for by the U.S. House of Representatives and wasn\u2019t an official government trip, aides said.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n The Swedish <\/i>investigation into Mr. Assange ended in May<\/i><\/span><\/a>, but he remains in the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition by the U.S.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric Zuesse According to the Wall Street Journal, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California spoke by phone on September 13th with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, aiming to transmit to President Trump, from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, a trade of \u2018proof\u2019 of Russian non-involvement in the transmission to the public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":222108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[2842,951,524,6257],"class_list":{"0":"post-326258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-assange","9":"tag-clinton","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}