In 2010, Joe Biden described WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as closer to a terrorist than a journalist. “I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers,” Biden, then the vice president, said on NBC’s Meet the Press at the time.
Now, as president, Biden has flip-flopped.
Biden took questions from reporters when hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. When asked about Australia’s request for the U.S. to drop the charges, Biden said, “We’re considering it.”
In 2010, Assange went on WikiLeaks to publish footage of the U.S. military’s 2007 airstrike in Baghdad, and he showed a shocking amount of collateral damage. He’d obtained the video from Army analyst Chelsea Manning.
Assange was indicted by a grand jury in 2019, and he faces federal charges of espionage and conspiracy to commit computer fraud. He’s remained in custody since that year, and he’s currently in British custody.
According to last month’s court ruling from the U.K., the U.S. can extradite him only after eliminating any possibility of the death penalty in this case.
Assange’s wife, Stella, has stirred about her husband’s health declining behind bars. She worries he’ll die in prison, and she said that he was “persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.”
In February, Australia’s parliament passed a motion calling for Assange’s return to his native Australia. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese voted in favor, and he expressed hope after Biden’s remark about “considering” it.
“I have said that we have raised, on behalf of Mr. Assange, Australia’s national interests that enough is enough and this needs to be brought to a conclusion and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Mr. Assange has already paid a significant price and enough is enough. There’s nothing to be gained by Mr. Assange’s continued incarceration in my very strong view and I’ve put that as the view of the Australian government.”
Australian officials accuse the U.S. of treating Assange differently than Manning, who saw her sentence commuted by former President Barack Obama.
Assange has won awards for journalism exposing state secrets. However, he’s also faced criticism for leaking documents selectively and for failing to redact Social Security numbers.
Biden, in particular, has slammed Assange for… inducing U.S. officials to make their meetings more secure.
“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,” Biden said on NBC News in 2010.
“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.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.