The recent Guardian article penned by Luke Harding – of famed ‘the Russians are invading Ukraine with a convoy of (mythical) tanks” and other anti-Russian hysteria, and co-author Dan Collyns, alleges that Paul Manafort, U.S. convicted felon and former Republican campaign chief for Donald Trump’s election campaign, met and conspired with Julian Assange of Wikileaks to ensure Hilary Clinton was not elected President.
The authors of the Guardian story, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, were in Ecuador recently with Equadorian , Fernando Villavicencio, who ‘assisted’ with this story and who they had previously worked with on other evidence -free stories. Villavicencio ( Fernando Villavicencio, oil exsindicalista refugee in the US) has fabricated claims about people visiting Assange in the past. In May he claimed Farage visited Assange on 28 April 2009, a month after Ecuador initiated its 8 month-long isolation of Assange, banning phone calls, all visits and internet. Assange’s isolation at the Embassy coincided with the defeat of Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa to U.S. supporter Lenin Moreno. The Guardian article states ; based on the allegations from Villavicencio, that Manafort entered the Equadorian Embassy in London where Assange is currently in refuge, and spoke to Assange, on several occasions. But as Craig Murray notes , the Equadorian Embassy security files, let alone the London Police records, strangely show no evidence of such meetings. Embassy employees who were there during that entire time period also say they never saw Manafort or heard of his visit.
Assange and Wikileaks; and also separately, Paul Manafort, are now proposing legal action against the Guardian. Wikileaks is raising money here for their legal appeal. In likely response to these legal threats, the Guardian has now edited its original story to soften the tone of the allegations. See the edits here at https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1706143/diff/0/1. If both libel actions are successful against the Guardian; its capacity to survive financially are questionable -as will be its reputation as a reputable news-source. Why then would the Guardian take such a risk? It is to be noted that legal libel proceeding costs in the U.K. can be up to 140 times the costs of similar proceedings in Europe ( ironically this is a Guardian link) .
Wikileaks’ crime is not only that it did the unpardonable; it published leaked information that accurately and truthfully described war crimes committed by both the U.K. , the US and other Western states, but more importantly Wikileaks also has put into question the very lucrative financial dealings of the City of London and also the Maltese government. Without these illegal financial dealings, (primarily via Russian ‘oligarchs’ who have fled Russia), it is possible that the City of London and much of the British economy, could collapse.
These murky financial dealings intermesh with much of the terrorist activities carried out by Western (particularly U.S.) intelligence agencies to ensure their corporate sponsors retain their supplies of cash regardless of the impacts on lives and the local environment. South American right wing governments and their military/intelligence agencies have played a key role in these activities – hence the arrival of the very dubious Fernando Villavicencio and his timely allegations of collusion between Trump, Assange and the Russians.
Jimmy Llama notes many convoluted links to neo’liberal’ thinktanks, shady corporates and U.S. and other individuals such as Bill Browder, famed for instigating the U.S. Magnitsky Act ( Russia has now accused Browder of Magnitsky’s murder) and a key player in the Russiagate allegations.
These allegations are one of many determined concerted media efforts to ensure that once Assange is no longer under the protection of the Ecuadorian London Embassy, there will be limited public backlash against those governments responsible for his subsequent deportation to the U.S. – his show-trial and likely disappearance..
That process is after all , standard practice already by the United States and others; make allegations against someone you don’t like or need , inform the necessary Western authorities, and a drone can eliminate any unnecessary evidence forthwith.
Julian Assange and Wikileaks have indeed played a very dangerous game- unmasking the extremely brutal and vicious international game of exploitation and greed by those in positions of power in the name of “democracy and freedom”…
Links
Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies
https://www.latimes.com/ct-julian-assange-russian-visa-20180917-story.html
https://www.gofundme.com/wikileaks-suing-the-guardian-over-manafort-story
The Fate of Julian Assange: Chris Hedges Interviews Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria
A Written Guide to the Guardian’s Smear Campaign Against Assange
The Truth About Fernando Villavicencio, the Guardian’s Source for Their Anti-Assange Campaign
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-really-killed-sergei-magnitsky-16612
https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html
Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice
New Antarctica 