That notion has never been tested in court, however, because until now the government has never brought such charges. The Obama administration had also weighed charging Mr. Assange, but rejected that step out of fears that it would chill investigative journalism and could be struck down as unconstitutional. The evidence laid out in the indictment against Mr. Assange mapped onto information presented by military prosecutors in the 2013 court-martial trial of Ms. Manning. Ms. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison — by far the longest punishment for a leak case in American history. But in one of his last acts in office, President Barack Obama commuted most of the remainder of her sentence in January 2017.

Source: New York Times May 23, 2019 20:03 UTC