WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested, Charged By U.S. Justice Department

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested in London on Thursday. He was charged by the U.S. Justice Department with engaging in a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JULIAN ASSANGE: They must resist. U.K. will resist. (Unintelligible).

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

That's WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shouting, they must resist, early this morning in London. The 47-year-old WikiLeaks founder, bearded and handcuffed, was dragged out of the embassy by British authorities for, quote, "failing to surrender to the court."

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Assange had political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy for almost seven years. Here he was back in 2012.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ASSANGE: I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum.

CHANG: Assange is notorious for his role in releasing classified information in 2010 through his website WikiLeaks.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #1: Breaking news this morning on WikiLeaks, the website that's been putting tens of thousands of leaked secret documents on the Internet.

CHANG: Those leaks included a July 2007 video of an airstrike in Baghdad by a U.S. air crew. Note - this does include the sound of gunfire.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #1: Light them all up.

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #2: Come on. Fire.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #3: Keep shooting.

SHAPIRO: During the 2016 presidential election, Assange was also involved in the WikiLeaks dump of thousands of stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #2: We saw the release of these 20,000 emails from WikiLeaks from the DNC.

SHAPIRO: Here in the U.S., the Justice Department charged Assange today with engaging in a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. This is related to a leak of classified documents by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was then known as Bradley Manning.

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