ASSANGE EXTRADITION: UK Minister Who Approved Trump’s Request to Extradite
Assange Spoke at Secretive US Conferences with People Calling for Him to be
‘Neutralized’
May 21, 2020
Britain’s former home secretary attended “starlight chats” and “after-dinner
cocktails” in off-the-record conferences involving high-level U.S. military and
intelligence figures, report Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard.
Britain’s then Chancellor of Exchequer Sajid Javid (L) welcomes then U.S.
National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) to 11 Downing Street. (Office of U.S.
National Security Advisor, Wikimedia Commons)
By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis
Declassified UK
Sajid Javid, who was Britain’s home secretary from April 2018 to July 2019,
attended “starlight chats” and “after-dinner cocktails” in a series of
off-the-record conferences involving high-level U.S. military and intelligence
figures at a five-star island resort off the coast of Georgia. Many of those
attending have been exposed in WikiLeaks publications and have demanded the
organization be shut down.
Javid signed the Trump administration’s extradition request for Assange in June
2019. He was Britain’s chancellor until his recent resignation. One of the
criteria under which a British home secretary can block extradition to the U.S.
is if “the person could face the death penalty.”
The month before being appointed home secretary in April 2018, Javid visited
Georgia for the “world forum” of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — an
influential neoconservative U.S. organization with close ties to the U.S.
intelligence community. The AEI has run a campaign against WikiLeaks and
Assange since 2010.
It can now be revealed [this article was first published on Feb. 22, 2020] that
Javid spoke at the 2018 meeting, as did Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the AEI who
has called for Assange to be “garroted.” In a column published on the AEI
website, Goldberg wrote: “WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and
well-publicised breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs
gave the Soviets the bomb. So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his
hotel room years ago? It’s a serious question.”
Bill Kristol, a close associate of the AEI who also spoke in Georgia with
Javid, has written a column titled “Whack WikiLeaks” in which he asked: “Why
can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange
and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can’t we disrupt and destroy
WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible?”
Kristol’s article was promoted on social media by another AEI fellow who spoke
in Georgia with Javid.
Both Goldberg and Kristol spoke at all four of the AEI’s world fora that Javid
attended from 2014 to 2018.
Bill Kristol
✔
@BillKristol
Here at @AEI World Forum. If everything weren't strictly off the record, there
would be some interesting things to report.
3
12:59 PM - Mar 7, 2015
Twitter Ads info and privacy
See Bill Kristol's other Tweets
On the panel with Javid in 2018 was Elliott Abrams, a key neo-conservative
architect of the Iraq war of 2003 best-known for his conviction during the
Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan administration. Abrams has lamented
WikiLeaks’ document releases. Also on Javid’s panel was Fred Kagan, a senior
AEI staffer who served as an adviser to the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Javid’s signing of the U.S. extradition request was a controversial decision
opposed at the time by the Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott. “Julian Assange
is not being pursued to protect US national security, he is being pursued
because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military
forces,” Abbott told the British parliament in April 2019 after Assange had
been grabbed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The Trump administration’s extradition request is unprecedented in that the
U.K. has never extradited a journalist and publisher to a third country for
prosecution.
The deliberations within the U.K. Home Office about Assange’s extradition and
incarceration in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, where he is currently held,
are opaque. Declassified sent a Freedom of Information request to the Home
Office asking for any telephone call or email mentioning Assange sent to or
from Sajid Javid while he was running the department. The Home Office replied:
“We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home
Office does not hold the information that you have requested.”
It is unclear if Javid only discussed the Assange extradition request in person
while home secretary or if he used a private email or phone to do so.
Aerial view of the The Cloister hotel at the Sea Island resort where Sajid
Javid attended six secretive conferences with an array of high-level military
and intelligence figures who have been exposed by WikiLeaks. (lns1122, Flickr)
Secret Intelligence-Linked Meetings
The attendees, agenda and even the dates of the AEI world forum are a
tightly-guarded secret. But Declassified is now publishing the attendance lists
and agendas — marked “confidential” — of the last four conferences Javid
attended: in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018 (see end of article). Declassified
could not obtain information on Javid’s first two AEI meetings in 2011 and
2013.
Since attending his first “world forum” at the AEI in 2011, within a year of
becoming an MP, Javid subsequently visited six out of eight AEI annual
conferences up to 2018. From June 2012 until today, Javid’s parliamentary
register of interests records that he has made no overseas trips paid by a
third-party except those funded by the AEI. In total, Javid has received
£31,285.19 ($40,800) in gifts from the AEI.
Javid is the most frequent British guest of the U.S. organization, and in most
years has been one of only a few British invitees. The only other British
regular is Michael Gove, another senior figure in Boris Johnson’s cabinet.
Adm. Michael S. Rogers, then director of NSA, speaks during Fort Meade’s 100th
anniversary gala, June 17, 2017, at Club Meade. (Steve Ruark/Flickr)
The AEI has access to the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence community.
Guests at the events Javid attended included two former directors of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and two sitting directors of the National
Security Agency (NSA). In 2018, President Donald Trump’s then National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster spoke alongside Javid. Any discussions between the
British minister and the intelligence chiefs have remained secret.
The CIA made clear that it is “working to take down” WikiLeaksafter the latter
published the largest-ever leak of classified CIA material in 2017. It was
recently revealed that the CIA was provided with audio and video of Julian
Assange’s private meetings, including privileged conversations with lawyers, in
the Ecuadorian embassy by a Spanish security company. The NSA has also been
extensively exposed byWikiLeaks.
The AEI’s 2016 event saw Javid speaking on a panel titled, “The Challenge
Abroad and Implications for the United States,” alongside U.S. Senator Lindsay
Graham who called for Assange to be indicted in 2010 solely for receiving
leaks.
Another panel, “Wargaming the Next Attack on the United States,” featured
former CIA Director Michael Hayden alongside Marc Thiessen and Gary Schmitt,
two AEI staffers who have written extensively on shutting down Assange and
WikiLeaks. Also speaking in 2016 was Senator Mitch McConnell, who has called
Assange a “high-tech terrorist,” and Congressman Mike Rogers, who called for
WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning to be executed.
Javid spoke at the 2015 event with Paul Wolfowitz — an AEI scholar who has been
extensively exposed in WikiLeaks releases — about the threat posed by the
Islamic State terrorist group. Karl Rove, a former senior adviser to President
George W. Bush, also spoke at the 2015 event. It was reported in 2010 that Rove
was advising Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on how Sweden could help
the Obama administration prosecute WikiLeaks.
Another panel at the 2015 forum was titled, “Fighting a Cyberwar: Is Defense
the Only Option?” and featured the former director of the NSA, Keith Alexander;
the then director of the NSA, Michael S. Rogers; as well as former CIA director
Michael Hayden.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz listens to a reporter’s question in
the Pentagon on March 1, 2001. (DoD photo by R. D. Ward. )
“Much talk about the insecurity of the cybersphere has focused on
well-publicised breaches,” the panel briefing outlined, “but the reality of the
cyberthreat is much broader and more devastating than most assume.” The
question posed was: “Is our only choice to bar the doors, or has the time come
to take it to the enemy? And what will that mean?”
David Petraeus, another former CIA director, spoke at the AEI’s 2014 event
alongside former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, a member of the AEI’s board,
and John Bolton, often seen as the most belligerent pro-war figure in
Washington, who was a senior fellow at the AEI before becoming Trump’s national
security adviser. While at the AEI, Bolton wrote ambiguously: “As for WikiLeaks
itself, and anyone cooperating with its malicious enterprise, now is the time
to test our cyber-warfare capabilities. Fire away.”
American Enterprise Institute headquarters in the Daniel A. D’Aniello Building,
also called the Andrew Mellon Building, in Washington, D.C. (Jonathunder,
Wikimedia Commons)
Assange and the AEI
The AEI has been running a campaign against WikiLeaks—and Assange specifically
— throughout the U.S. media since 2010. The organization’s website lists 20
articles or events tagged with “Julian Assange” and 43 articles tagged with
“WikiLeaks,” all of which are negative.
AEI resident fellow Marc A. Thiessen has written numerous articles demonizing
Assange and the work of WikiLeaks. One article titled, “WikiLeaks must be
stopped,” which is published on the AEI website, concludes, “If left
unmolested, Assange will become even bolder and inspire others to imitate his
example.” Another article in May 2019, also on the AEI website, is titled,
“Assange is a spy, not a journalist. He deserves prison.” Thiessen attended all
the same annual AEI fora as Javid from 2014-18.
In 2012, the AEI sponsored an event in Washington, D.C., called “Assange’s
asylum in Correa’s Ecuador: Last refuge for scoundrels?” hosted by the AEI’s
visiting fellow Roger F. Noriega, another figure critical of Assange. The
question to be answered was listed as, “Can Ecuador’s president successfully
whitewash his image by advancing Assange’s anti-American crusade?”
Sajid Javid and the American Enterprise Institute did not respond to requests
for comment.
Matt Kennard is head of investigations and Mark Curtis editor, of Declassified
UK, a media organization investigating U.K. foreign, military and intelligence
policies. They tweet at @DCKennard and @markcurtis30. Follow Declassified on
twitter at @DeclassifiedUK
This article is from Declassified UK.
