The FBI’s decision not to file criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information warrants the Justice Department to end its investigation of WikiLeaks and its editor, Julian Assange, an attorney for the anti-secrecy website said Tuesday.

WikiLeaks plans to cite the “Clinton precedent” in arguing that the publication should not be prosecuted for distributing classified information, with lawyer Barry Pollack urging in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch that the Justice Department abandon the probe launched against WikiLeaks and its founder after the website began publishing classified U.S. government documents in 2010.

“As Mr. Assange’s criminal defense counsel in the United States, I have repeatedly sought information from the Department of Justice regarding this now nearly six-year-old investigation,” Mr. Pollack wrote. “Despite the fact that the Department has continually publicly confirmed through court filings and statements to the press that it is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation of Mr. Assange, the Department has provided me no substantive information whatsoever about the status of the investigation.”

During that same span, the letter acknowledges, the Justice Department opened and closed a criminal investigation focused on Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

FBI Director James Comey ultimately announced last month that investigators determined Mrs. Clinton and her colleagues acted “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” but not intentionally.

“Wikileaks‘ intent was lawful. It was not to aid enemies of the United States or to obstruct justice; it was to inform the public about matters of great public interest,” Mr. Pollack wrote.

“Under the circumstances, there is no legitimate basis for continuing the Department’s length criminal investigation of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks,” he added. “Doing so chills the newsgathering and reporting of WikiLeaks and other media organizations, improperly allows the Department to evade its responsibility to disclose information pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act premised on the open investigation and has resulted in what the United Nations has deemed to be the unlawful detention of Mr. Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than four years.”

Tuesday’s letter to the attorney general was sent as the WikiLeaks‘ publisher commemorated four years to the date since being granted political asylum by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in light of an arrest warrant being issued by prosecutors in Sweden.

Mr. Assange is wanted for questioning by Swedish prosecutors over a 2010 sexual-assault accusation, but has stated he fears that efforts to question him in Stockholm over the claims would lead to his extradition to the U.S. to stand trial for charges related to his website.

As acknowledged in Tuesday’s letter, however, the Justice Department has been largely quiet with regards to its case against Mr. Assange since opening its investigation nearly six years ago. Although court filings entered as recently as May confirmed the status of the DOJ’s WikiLeaks probe as active, the only charges related to the website to be publicly revealed by prosecutors involve the case against one of its sources, former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

Manning, 28, is currently serving 35 years in military prison as a result of convictions related to her role with WikiLeaks, and is currently being investigated behind bars after a suicide attempt on the same day Mr. Comey said prosecutors would not be pursuing charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Tuesday’s letter, shared by WikiLeaks through its official Twitter account, calls on Mrs. Lynch to publicly announce whether federal prosecutors have any pending charges against Mr. Assange under seal, to properly dismiss any such charges accordingly and that “the continued criminal investigation of which he is a target will be closed immediately with no criminal charges being brought.”

Attempts to reach WikiLeaks and the Justice Department for comment Tuesday were not immediately successful.

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