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I very much enjoy your writing, and I became a paid subscriber today.

I disagree with this article's portrayal of Assange as an suppressed journalist. While he could arguably assume the mantle of journalist early in Wikileaks' history, certainly by the time of the 2016 election that no longer held true. Assange made it clear that his purpose was to ensure the defeat of Clinton. See for example his remarks here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html. Assange also stated that he had hacked information from Republican emails, but he did not deem them newsworthy. There is reasonable evidence that the hacked emails were provided by the Russian GRU to Assange. This is backed by the Mueller report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/22/mueller-report-confirms-it-assange-is-not-whistleblower-or-journalist/. Note that both Democratic and Republican administrations have come to similar conclusions in this regard.

I feel this Atlantic article best sums up my view of Assange: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-assange-got-what-he-deserved/587008/

While we disagree about Assange, I found your description of the implications for the relationship between the US and Australia to be interesting and insightful.

Thanks for your work as a journalist.

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Good read thanks Ryan

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