Julian Assange on the “Lawfare Thing”


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By Truthdig

MR: No, no. Neil MacBride, just so you know, he’s the attorney, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. … He’s the head U.S. attorney guy.

JA: He’s the guy who’s responsible for the national security prosecutions, and in particular, most of the U.S.’ extraterritorial prosecutions. There was a hagiographic article appeared in The Washington Post about him, maybe four months ago; it’s really worth reading to understand the geopolitical aspect of the legal part of the case, which I sort of hadn’t realized before, but there’s a lawfare thing going on with U.S. law, to apply U.S. law to as many jurisdictions as possible. And if you have control over use of force in a foreign jurisdiction, it’s your jurisdiction. It’s part of your state by definition. So he’s involved with this project to push to encompass as many states as possible under U.S. law and to bring them back. That article says there’s 60-something territories that they’re pulling people in and prosecuting them in Alexandria, Virginia. He’s also handling the Kim Dotcom case.

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