News - Middle East: American journalist Don DeBar says the US Deep State wants to punish WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange badly as they blame him for Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in 2016 “and for the exposure of actual fascism operating as the US government.”

DeBar made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday after the Biden administration won an appeal in a UK court over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition.

The anti-establishment hero has been persecuted for years by Washington for exposing American wrongdoing and double-dealing across the world from Afghanistan and Iraq to Washington.

Assange had obtained a court decision rejecting the US attempts to extradite him, but his case was appealed, and the appellate court remanded it to a lower court for a new trial.
The 50-year-old is facing criminal charges in the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information.  American authorities accuse the Australian-born whistleblower of 18 counts for releasing vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables which they said had put lives in danger.

Biden had likened Assange to a ‘hi-tech terrorist’
US President Joe Biden had previously likened the WikiLeaks founder to a "hi-tech terrorist.” In December 2010, then-vice-president Biden claimed that by leaking diplomatic cables Assange had put lives at risk and made it more difficult for the United States to conduct its activities around the world.

Asked in an NBC interview if he saw Assange as closer to a hi-tech terrorist than the whistleblower who released the Pentagon papers in the 1970s, which disclosed the lie on which US involvement in Vietnam was based, Biden replied: "I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers. But, look, this guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world.

"He's made it more difficult for us to conduct our business with our allies and our friends. For example, in my meetings – you know I meet with most of these world leaders – there is a desire now to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room. It makes things more cumbersome – so it has done damage,” he said.

Debar told Press TV that “the-powers-that-be” in the United States want Assange dead.

“The-powers-that-be, a collection of US intelligence agencies, State and Justice Department careerists, corporate and foundation media, and the elites of both political parties, all consider Assange - and the kind of uncontrolled information flow that he represents - a threat to their otherwise absolute power. They want Assange – badly,” he said.

“They blame him for Hillary Clinton's loss and for the exposure of actual fascism operating as the US government. Both the 'appeal' and the appellate court's 'decision' to remand are actually expressions of US power over the UK's judiciary, which now is exposed as a rubber-stamp for US intel and the State Department. They want Assange tortured and dead as an example AND as a trophy. They are making the UK's judiciary drop its drawers and grab its ankles before the world,” he added.

“This, it should be noted, is the Biden Administration, and the prosecution of Assange - like the attacks on Manning and Snowden - was a creature of the Obama Administration. Too many people here thought Trump was the problem. I guess it's all better now. Nothing to see here,” the journalist stated.

“There is a dialectic operating here. By its very treatment of Assange's case, the repressive, paranoid nature of the US state, and scope of its reach - into both the Ecuadorian Presidential Palace and the UK's highest courts - are being laid bare before all humanity, thereby proving the very thing they are attempting to suppress and confirming what was exposed by WikiLeaks in the first place,” he concluded.