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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

An accidental revelation about Julian Assange

The U.S. Justice Department has prepared an indictment of the WikiLeaks founder, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. The move would be a sharp escalation of Mr. Assange’s yearslong battle with the American government.

It is not clear if prosecutors have filed charges against Mr. Assange. The development came to light in an unrelated court filing “made in error,” according to Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

• Why it matters: An indictment could have implications for the publication of government secrets and for Robert Mueller’s special counsel inquiry — which President Trump, in a barrage of tweets on Thursday, said had “gone absolutely nuts.”