The
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) was set to break ties with
WikiLeaks amidst concerns among the foundation’s board, which
includes such well-known figures as Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden,
Laura Poitras, John Cusack and Glenn Greenwald, among others. The
news was confirmed less than a month later when the nonprofit’s
board officially voted to stop accepting U.S. donations for
WikiLeaks, which had been blacklisted for years by Visa, MasterCard
and PayPal after publishing leaked U.S. government documents provided
by Chelsea Manning. WikiLeaks took to Twitter to suggest that
something more nefarious was behind the board’s decision to cut
ties. Once the news became public, WikiLeaks and its associated
accounts linked the FPF’s decision to the fact that many of its
members now work for organizations financed by eBay billionaire and
PayPal co-founder Pierre Omidyar. In addition, the FPF itself has
received large sums of money from Omidyar and his various businesses
and foundations. Pierre Omidyar, prior to the founding of The
Intercept, was known not for any commitment to journalism or free
speech but rather for his connections to the U.S. government and his
role in the financial blockade of WikiLeaks that began in 2010. Sibel
Edmonds, FBI whistleblower and founder of the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition, told MintPress News that the FPF has a
reputation for being a “very, very partisan organization and
populated with ideologues.” She further asserted that the “number
one reason” for the FPF’s decision was directly related to
Wikileaks’ releases in 2016, namely the DNC leaks and the Podesta
emails.
Part
2 - Voting WikiLeaks off the investigative island
Though
Timm’s explanation seemed benign enough, WikiLeaks took to Twitter
to suggest that something more nefarious was behind the board’s
decision to cut ties. Once the news became public, WikiLeaks and its
associated accounts linked the FPF’s decision to the fact that many
of its members now work for organizations financed by eBay
billionaire and PayPal owner Pierre Omidyar. In addition, the FPF
itself has received large sums of money from Omidyar and his various
businesses and foundations.
WikiLeaks,
in recent tweets, has suggested that Omidyar’s influence was
responsible not only for the FPF’s decision but also for the
unusual attacks that some FPF members have launched against
WikiLeaks, particularly Assange, in recent months. The most outspoken
of these members has been FPF director Micah Lee, who is employed by
the Omidyar-owned publication, The Intercept.
In
February of last year, Lee called Assange a “rapist, liar &
ally to fascists” in a tweet — despite the fact that Assange was
never charged with rape, his alleged accusers have also claimed that
Assange had not sexually assaulted them, and there is abundant
evidence suggesting that the rape investigation was a means of
ensnaring Assange to ensure his extradition to the United States.
Based on Lee’s other tweets, the “ally to fascists” charge
ostensibly refers to Lee’s belief that Wikileaks’ publications of
emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was done
explicitly, with Assange’s blessing, to aid the Trump campaign.
Lee has
also claimed that Assange is a “Putin fanboy” who doesn’t
care “about government transparency if the government in
question is Russia,” even though WikiLeaks has published
information damaging to the Russian government while Putin was
president. Lee also intimated that Assange may have a direct
relationship to the Kremlin, an outlandish claim for which there is
no basis.
Lee, in
other tweets, has also perpetuated the “Russiagate” conspiracy in
attempts to link Assange to Trump to Putin.
This
same conspiracy theory, which has produced no concrete evidence to
support its claims after more than a year, was initiated by top
government officials such as the former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director Michael Morell,
among others.
Other
members of FPF as well as some other Intercept writers have echoed
these claims as well, attacking Assange for allegedly siding with
Trump over Clinton in the 2016 election even though Assange never
declared support for Trump. Ironically, many of these same
journalists have themselves proven to be very partisan in their
writings and on social media, undermining the claim of Lee and others
that the FPF is “non-partisan.”
Sibel
Edmonds, FBI whistleblower and founder of the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition, told MintPress News that the FPF has a
reputation for being a “very, very partisan organization and
populated with ideologues.” She further asserted that the
“number one reason” for the FPF’s decision was directly
related to Wikileaks’ releases in 2016, namely the DNC leaks and
the Podesta emails.
Edmonds
added: “Assange violated their criteria and this is basically
their pay-back. All of the individuals [on the FPF] are
known to be ideologues, are into this game of divide and conquer.
Their role is to represent the left and Julian Assange challenged
this. Before the election, many of the members of this organization
supported Assange. It’s important to ask why this changed over
night.”
Despite
the slander and demonstrably false claims, other FPF members who have
historically defended WikiLeaks and Assange were silent regarding
Lee’s accusations, including Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg and
Edward Snowden. Though FPF members have denied that Omidyar’s
influence has had a role in these attacks, as well as in the board’s
decision to cut ties with WikiLeaks, a closer examination of Omidyar
and his ties to the U.S. political establishment — as well as his
apparent influence on some of the FPF’s most prominent members —
gives credibility to WikiLeaks’ concerns.
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