Tag: doj

“Free Assange” Demands Grow as Biden DOJ Says It Will Continue to Seek Extradition

Just a day after a coalition of press freedom groups urged President Joe Biden to drop his predecessor’s effort to prosecute Julian Assange, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said Tuesday that the new administration intends to challenge a British judge’s rejection last month of the U.S. attempt to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher.

“We continue to seek his extradition,” Marc Raimondi, a spokesperson for the DOJ’s National Security Division, told Reuters just days before the Friday deadline to appeal Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling, which denied the U.S. extradition request on the grounds that America’s brutal prison system would pose a threat to Assange’s life.

Charged by the Trump Justice Department in 2019 with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes overseas, Assange would likely face up to 175 years in a maximum-security prison if the extradition effort is successful.

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Justice Department probe ends with no action against prosecutors who oversaw Epstein deal

A Justice Department investigation found that federal prosecutors who oversaw a controversial non-prosecution deal with Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 exercised “poor judgment” but did not break the law, Sen. Ben Sasse said Thursday.

The announcement followed an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility into the conduct of former federal government lawyers, including ex-Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.

“Letting a well-connected billionaire get away with child rape and international sex trafficking isn’t ‘poor judgment’ – it is a disgusting failure,” said Sasse, R-Neb. “Americans ought to be enraged.”

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