The Guardian in the frontline of the establishment media that have declared a dirty and ruthless war against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and real journalism

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The Guardian has stepped up its contemptible role as one of the main media conduits for the persecution of Julian Assange, publishing unsubstantiated and sensationalist allegations that the WikiLeaks publisher met with American political lobbyist, Paul Manafort.

One of the two authors of the Guardian article was, predictably, Luke Harding. Harding has penned a stream of material aimed at undermining support for Assange and WikiLeaks and attempting to justify the efforts of the US government to prosecute him for espionage or conspiracy. Assange aptly described an error-filled 2014 book written by Harding about whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks as a “hack job in the purest sense of the word.”

The allegation that Assange met with Manafort is another desperate effort to implicate WikiLeaks in the lurid claims of the Democratic Party, US intelligence agencies and much of the media that the Russian government “interfered” in the 2016 US presidential election to promote the victory of Donald Trump.

Full report:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/28/mana-n28.html

Recall that when - nearly a year ago - Aaron Maté asked some tough and "annoying" questions in an interview with Luke Harding concerning his book Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win, Harding lost his temper and left from the interview without giving a straight answer.

Maté was repeatedly asking about serious evidence that proves the conclusion and Harding was avoiding to give a straight answer through almost childish responses like "maybe you could read the rest of the book when you finish the interview", or, "but you're clearly a collusion rejectionist". In the end, he became extremely nervous and left from the interview. Watch to draw your own conclusions:

BREAKING: @WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has instructed his lawyers to sue the Guardian for libel over fabricated Manafort story and launched a legal fund to boost the action https://t.co/VaoMESN5RO

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 27, 2018

Beyond parody: Politico just published an ex-CIA officer, using a pseudonym, who posits that Russia or some other cunning actor planted the Manafort story “to make [Luke] Harding look bad.” (https://t.co/R0WYRwSgSw). Btw, they should probably watch this: (https://t.co/P52sVQT2B2) pic.twitter.com/m7MiPuafEP

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) November 29, 2018

Watch @AriMelber & @annaschecter attempt to sell viewers the Guardian's pile of spook-sourced disinformation on @wikileaks as "explosive" and a "collusion bombshell," and encounter skepticism from one of the biggest Russiagate fanatics on the planet. https://t.co/JtTUZUjpZr pic.twitter.com/KIjnw92Tp7

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 29, 2018

Recall also that on Sept. 21, 2018, The Guardian published an article titled “Revealed: Russia’s secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from the UK.” In that story, Guardian reporters Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding asserted that Russia had devised a plot to “smuggle” Assange out of the embassy in a diplomatic car and then whisk him out of the U.K. The authors also claimed that Moscow had negotiated the alleged plot with a close Ecuadorian confidant of Assange and suggested that the scheme raised “new questions about Assange’s ties to the Kremlin.”

But the story was an obvious fabrication, intended to justify the agreement to deprive Assange of his asylum in the embassy by linking him with the Kremlin. The only alleged evidence it offered was the claim by unidentified sources that the former Ecuadorian consul on London and confidant of Assange, Fidel Narvaez, had “served as a point of contact with Moscow” on the escape plan—a claim that the Narvaez had flatly denied.