James Comey Exposed for Sabotaging Immunity Deal Between US Gov’t & Julian Assange

 Washington, D.C. – A bombshell report that has subsequently garnered  very little mainstream media attention revealed that embattled former  FBI director James Comey intervened in secret negotiations between the  U.S. Department of Justice and an intermediary for WikiLeaks’ Julian  Assange in an attempt to kill a limited immunity deal that could have  potentially prevented the release of stolen CIA cyber warfare  capabilities—while also shedding light on the contentious leaked DNC  emails. 

The secret negotiations began in January 2017, when American attorney  Adam Waters was contacted by Assange’s legal team—in an effort to test  the waters with the new Trump administration in regards to the  possibility of negotiations with Assange, who has been “arbitrarily  detained” in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, under threat of  extradition to the U.S. under a sealed federal grand jury indictment  relating to past WikiLeaks releases of classified material. The exclusive report by The Hill’s John Solomon explained who was involved: 

Some of the characters are household names, thanks to  the Russia scandal: James Comey, fired FBI director. Sen. Mark Warner  (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Department  of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr. Julian Assange, grand master of  WikiLeaks. And American attorney Adam Waldman, who has a Forrest  Gump-like penchant for showing up in major cases of intrigue.

Waldman, a former Clinton Justice Department official, agreed to work  pro bono in assisting Assange’s team in opening the lines of  communication with the proper individuals within the US law enforcement  bureaucracy that would be receptive to such an overture. Solomon reported that despite the successful drafting of a limited  agreement for talks, Comey “unexpectedly intervened” in the negotiations  by proxy, which ultimately resulted in the negotiations failing to  secure an agreement: 

The effort resulted in the drafting of a limited  immunity deal that might have temporarily freed the WikiLeaks founder  from a London embassy where he has been exiled for  years, according to interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents  turned over to Senate investigators. Read the draft immunity deal  proffer that the Justice Department was considering for Assange here. But an unexpected intervention by Comey — relayed through Warner —  soured the negotiations, multiple sources tell me. Assange eventually  unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber  warfare capabilities for a long time to come.

The deal was simple: Assange would be granted “immunity/safe passage”  to leave the embassy to attend talks with the U.S. to discuss the  possibility of “risk mitigation” relating to WikiLeaks releases of CIA  documents in the possession of WikiLeaks. 

Although willing to negotiate  in good faith and consider possible redactions, Assange’s legal  representatives made it clear that he “would never compromise his sources, or stop publishing information,” reported The Hill. Knowing that Assange was in possession of a massive cache of  classified CIA documents, including sensitive assets, the U.S.  government chose to engage in negotiations. 

The possibility that Assange  would be potentially willing to redact material was taken as an  extraordinary overture. A senior official involved at the time said that  despite being reviled in the intel community due to past leaks,  officials “understood any visibility into his thinking, any  opportunity to negotiate any redactions, was in the national security  interest and worth taking.” 

David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor and then director of the  Department of Justice’s counterintelligence and export controls section,  was chosen to lead the talks for the US and laid the groundwork for a  potential negotiation with Assange. 

The Hill reported that “Laufman played to Assange’s belief that  he was a publisher, the documents show; he put an offer on the table  from the intelligence community to help Assange assess how some hostile  foreign powers might be infiltrating or harming WikiLeaks staff.” 

“Dear David, I relayed our conversations to Assange and he had a generally positive view of it,” Waldman wrote to Laufman in mid-March. Waldman’s correspondence with Laufman on March 28, 2017, reveals an agreed upon conceptual framework for negotiations: 

“Subject to adequate and binding protections,  including but not limited to an acceptable immunity and safe passage  agreement, Mr. Assange welcomes the opportunity to discuss with the U.S.  government risk mitigation approaches relating to CIA documents in  WikiLeaks’ possession or control, such as the redaction of agency  personnel in hostile jurisdictions and foreign espionage risks to  WikiLeaks staff.”

These discussions ultimately resulted in an informal offer—referred to as a “Queen for a Day” proffer—in which Assange identified what he might give and what he wanted in return. Incredibly, what was not in the written proffer was an additional  offer from Assange to rule out specific parties through the use of  technical evidence in regard to the popularized notion that Russia  hacked the DNC emails. 

While the U.S. government steadfastly claims the  Russian government hacked the emails, Assange has maintained that the  emails did not come from Russia. “Mr. Assange offered to provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases,” Waldman told The Hill. 

“Finally,  he offered his technical expertise to the U.S. government to help  address what he perceived as clear flaws in security systems that led to  the loss of the U.S. cyber-weapons program.” 

Ultimately, an early intervention by then FBI director James Comey  seems to have sowed distrust within Assange’s team regarding U.S.  intentions. Only days after the negotiations began, Waldman contacted  Sen. Warner to see if the Senate Intelligence Committee would like to  have access to Assange for testimony. Warner then unexpectedly contacted Comey and relayed the information about the secret negotiations. 

Days later, Warner contacted Waldman and explained that after consulting with Comey, he was to “stand down.” “He told me he had just talked with Comey and that, while the  government was appreciative of my efforts, my instructions were to stand  down, to end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told The Hill. 

While the negotiations continued in the wake of the Warner-Comey  intervention, the episode sowed enough distrust within Assange’s camp to  irrevocably damage the good faith talks. “The constructive, principled discussions with DOJ that  occurred over nearly two months were complicated by the confusing ‘stand  down’ message,” Waldman recalled. 

The Hill reported that multiple sources confirmed that the FBI’s  counterintelligence team was aware and engaged in the Justice  Department’s strategy of negotiations with Assange but had no  explanation for what motivated Comey to send a completely different  message. 

On April 7, 2017, the U.S. government backed out of the negotiations  after WikiLeaks released more documents detailing some of the CIA  malware used for cyber attacks. Then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo quickly labeled WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.” 

The elephant in the room here is that if the DNC hack is proven not  to be the work of Russia—or maybe not even a hack at all—then Comey  would be forced to explain why the FBI did not inspect the servers  allegedly hacked by Russia after they were rebuffed by the DNC. 

It seems likely that Assange has the potential to unravel the entire  house of cards by imploding the Russiagate narrative—which will then  force the mainstream to begin to ask some very uncomfortable questions  about the Obama Administration’s weaponization of the intelligence  apparatus for political purposes—thus likely explaining why Comey went  off reservation and attempted to sabotage the negotiations.