A key witness in the Department of Justice’s case against Julian Assange has admitted that his entire testimony is false, a revelation that could be the death knell for US attempts to prosecute the Wikileaks founder.
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, often known as “Siggi the Hacker,” made the confession to Icelandic outlet Stundin (6/26/21) last weekend. The article details how Thordarson, a convicted felon, pedophile and diagnosed sociopath, used his position to steal money from Wikileaks, and received immunity from prosecution from the FBI in a quid pro quo.
Such a blatant and juicy piece of important news should have made worldwide headlines. But, instead, as of Friday, July 2, there has been literally zero coverage of it in corporate media; not one word in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, Fox News or NPR. A search online for either “Assange” or “Thordarson” will elicit zero relevant articles from establishment sources, either US or elsewhere in the Anglosphere, even in tech-focused platforms like the Verge, Wired or Gizmodo.
Widely covered by alternative sites
The other major development in the case, according to the Canary (6/30/21), is Jeremy Corbyn delivering a letter from 20 MPs to the prison where Assange is held, demanding the right to visit him and treating him as a political prisoner.
The news is not some sort of esoteric knowledge known only to those carefully watching Icelandic affairs. The story trended worldwide on Twitter on the weekend, with a number of prominent accounts or figures like Wikileaks itself, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald tweeting about it.
Not only that, Thordarson’s confession was well covered by alternative news sites with a tiny fraction of the resources establishment media have (e.g., Consortium News, 6/27/21; World Socialist Web Site, 6/27/21; Canary, 6/30/21). The story led Democracy Now!’s Monday show (6/28/21), which featured an in-depth interview with Assange’s legal advisor, Jennifer Robinson. This distinction once again highlights the gaping chasm between corporate and alternative media, suggesting that certain subjects are simply no-go zones for the former.
It is not that the corporate press are completely uninterested in Assange. A number of outlets have covered the news this week that he and his partner Stella Morris are planning to get married (e.g., SBS, 6/27/21; Daily Mail, 6/28/21; Evening Standard, 6/28/21; London Times, 6/29/21). Yet none of these articles mentioned the far more consequential news about Thordarson and how it undermines the entire prosecution of Assange.
Dubious witness
Thordarson was an extremely dubious witness from the start. In 2013, he was jailed on charges of sex crimes involving an underage teenager. The next year, he also pled guilty to molesting or inappropriate sexual behavior toward nine other children. A court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed him as a sociopath incapable of feeling remorse.
In 2014, he was sentenced to two further years in prison for a range of financial crimes, including embezzling $50,000 from Wikileaks. He has also been accused of attempting to blackmail other local businesses, although charges were later dropped. Thus, just like Assange, Siggi the Hacker has spent much of the last decade behind bars.
Siding with the state
The Washington Post (4/11/19) may be the only outlet that called on one of its sources to be imprisoned for winning it a Pulitzer.
In a nation with a healthy media system, the press would be hailing these revelations as a final blow to an authoritarian government’s attempts to use its muscle to silence free speech and investigative journalism worldwide, while also wondering how such an untrustworthy witness could have become such a key source for the FBI and the DoJ.
But our global corporate press long ago decided to side with the US national security state, applauding the Trump administration for abducting Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London (FAIR.org, 4/18/19). The Washington Post’s editorial board (4/11/19) cheered the arrest, calling it “long overdue.” The Wall Street Journal (4/11/19) was of a similar opinion, its board expressing its relief that there would finally be some “accountability for Assange.” CNN (4/12/19) attempted to draw a distinction between itself and Wikileaks’ work, insisting in its headline that Assange is “not a journalist.”
As FAIR (8/25/20) noted last year, corporate media have been working hard to look the other way during Assange’s trial, after having attempted to paint him as a Russian asset (FAIR.org, 12/3/18). This appears to have worked. Former Democratic presidential nomination candidate Howard Dean tweeted this week that “Assange did real damage along with others in collaborating with the Russians to elect Trump. He should not be pardoned under any circumstances.” Dean is apparently under the impression that this is what the trial is about, not the publishing of the Iraq War Logs.
The complete uniformity with which corporate media have treated this latest bombshell news raises even more concerns about how fundamentally intertwined and aligned they are with the interests of the US government. As investigative journalist Matt Kennard (Twitter, 7/1/21) noted: “One of the amazing things about the legal stitch-up of Assange is how brazen it is. They know they can get away with it because the mainstream media refuses to report it.” Unfortunately, he appears to be right.
It’s a felony in most jurisdictions to offer perjured testimony, and it’s grounds for disbarment everywhere. The lawyers who credited this crook need to be separated from the practice of law, and Assange’s lawyers should waste no time filing the appropriate grievances..
I believe what Julian Assange has reported, but much of the American press, lacks the ability to even tell the truth———–and that is a crime in what is supposed to be a democratic republic with free speech.
lol hawkins aka a assange reported nothing of note. gullible much?
I’d simply assumed Bezos, NYT, Comcast/ AT&T, Disney, Viacom would simply ignore ALL of these creatures being outed (realizing their deals for lying Assange into SuperMax or Gitmo for Hills, Kerry, Albright… were bullshit scams? I have to admit, being surprised Amy Goodman covered it and WSWS cut & pasted SOME honest lefty blog-aggregator. But, the PropR’Not & David Brock reactionary liberal blogs, MSDNC was too busy trying to dispel EVIL RooskiBot Fake News about heat domes and Miami collapsing into a fetid swamp distracting folks from China, Russia, Iran & uppity essentials, too lazy to fetch their brunch!
The WSWS is always honest, my friend. However, I was also surprised that Democracy Now stuck its neck out on this story. Perhaps Amy Goodman has noticed the drop off in support from people who want REAL news.
Not about attribution (or US racism, for that matter!) WSWS would do some GREAT coverage of COVID being used to flip victim’s homes, forage their equity, gentrify their neighborhoods; while their chronically ill, “essential worker” loved-ones were indentured into 1099 virtual peonage, without ACA “insurance,” sick leave, overtime, unemployment, OSHA, Workers Comp… and pretty much, everything else, you have to cut & paste to see who’d originated the article. So, you’d watch big unions, DNC, AFL/CIA’s Stu Appelbaum, cops, media… crushing rank and file strikes, without any real citations or attributions, to fact-check or learn more?
I’d figured, it was Consortium News they’d “aggregated” verbatim; since ProPublica, Caitlin, ShadowProof, GrayZone, Counterpunch, MoA & especially Yves were otherwise occupied? As long as the PropR’Not crowd can spin it into agitprop now?
Proof that the media & corporations are ultimately run by the govt. Corporations want to make money, govts want to control & censor. It’s always been that way. Nothing’s changes except the methods.
Slightly incorrect to say the US MSM is aligning with the US Government. Aligning with the Powers-that-be who control the US Government would be more accurate. Biden probably can’t even control his own bladder, never mind the Govetnment. The last person who achieved that was JFK, and he was soon ‘ removed ‘ by the Powers-that-be.
What the press war on freedom of reporters to work has wrought; I live in an bucolic small town of Greenfield Massachusetts, USA. The citizens here have enthusiastically limited their own prior right to the citizen’s referendum for no apparent reason.
Omission is a big part of propaganda, it clearly matters that that confuses what is is.
Remember that P0S Epstein GUILTY zioTrumpy rewarded GAYWAD Israeli firster Richard Grenell for setting Assange up for arrest in Ecuador. SAME SWAMP.
But the corporate press is not that interested in Assange anymore if all they only post about marriage issues. That is merely human interest. There hasn’t been much interest in Thordarson after the Rolling Stone article where he was trotted out as Assange’s closest friend, in an article of the type ‘people you love to hate’. I googled Thordarson at the NYTimes and they stopped talking about him in 2014.
There was little interest in Assange’s extradition trial – helped by the british efforts to limit access, so few people even know that Thordarson was a key witness in the trial.
There should have been deep interest and there wasn’t, but the reasons for the lack of interest seem to fit better with the ‘business logic’ of selling juicy narratives than with explicit alignment with state interests.
ASSange real name hawkins,DID NOT FOUND WIKILEAKS! that lie is repeated endlessly. hawkins is a computer hacker who hacked the pentagon with 4 others in 1991. most likely a deal was reached to be cia asset /patsy. his alleged,GASP, release of those military films caused no one any harm. in fact the braindead sheeple nevber realized the military was bad until then? come on!
The US should be rated as most corrupt country on the planet