The persecution of Julian Assange, aided and abetted by the silence of the US media, is a “warning shot” to journalists who are openly critical of the US national security state, journalist Max Blumenthal tells RT.

“I see no hope for him receiving a fair trial in a US court,” Blumenthal says, pointing out that not only the US government but its media has mustered only a “muted response” to “one of the most disturbing assaults on journalism and the First Amendment in my lifetime.”

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Assange is being made to suffer for “revealing the dirty secrets of the US national security state,” he adds. Not only the 2010 revelations of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, but “Wikileaks’ role in embarrassing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign” have been used to turn the world against him, fueling “an industrial-grade campaign of demonization and disinformation.”

But “those of us who report critically on the machinations of the US national security state” must not give in to the intimidation campaign, Blumenthal writes. “We should respond not with caution or fear, but by redoubling our efforts.”

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