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How British Intelligence Framed Julian Assange as Russian Agent British intelligence deployed a secret cabal of media assets to frame WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as an agent of the Russian Federation. https://t.co/UXFBBCQLvQ
Video Transcript AI Summary
Julian Assange is finally free after years of persecution, having been held in London's Belmarsh prison. A campaign of misinformation, particularly from Western media, aimed to dehumanize him and undermine public support. Assange was falsely portrayed as a Kremlin agent, especially after his arrest in 2019, despite a lack of evidence. The Integrity Initiative, a covert British intelligence operation, played a significant role in spreading this narrative, particularly in Spain, where it connected Assange to Russian influence during the Catalan independence referendum. This campaign included disinformation tactics that led to his isolation and eventual removal from the Ecuadorian embassy, resulting in his ongoing suffering. The ease with which intelligence agencies manipulate media narratives highlights the dangers of uncritical journalism.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is now free at last after a decade and a half of torture and persecution. Many may have forgotten that he was incarcerated in London's Belmarsh prison, Britain's Gitmo. Such is the public conspiracy of silence and apathy fomented by a concerted campaign of calumny, incubated in London and Washington DC, designed to extinguish public sympathy for Julian. As Niles Melzer, then United Nations special rapporteur on torture, wrote in a June 2019 op ed Western news outlets refused to publish, Julian was systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed. And once he'd been dehumanized through isolation, ridicule, and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without promote provoking public outrage worldwide.
A prominent libel against Julian for many years was that he operated upon the orders and in the interests of the Kremlin. When British police forcibly hauled Julian handcuffed out of the Ecuadorian embassy, many mainstream outlets cheered, believing he would soon be indicted for his GRU assisted role in subverting the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election. No such charges were ever forthcoming. And in September 2021, Yahoo News inadvertently let an incongruous cat out of the bag. The outlet revealed the CIA had explored plans to surveil, kidnap, and even kill Julian while he was ensconced in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Along the way, Yahoo noted that the CIA possessed no evidence Julian or WikiLeaks had any ties whatsoever with Russia. Difficulty improving he or his organization had operated at the direct behest of the Kremlin was reportedly a major factor when in April 2017, Mike Pompeo, then CIA director, designated WikiLeaks a non state hostile intelligence service. That unfounded assertion opened the floodgates for the agency's untrammeled surveillance, harassment, and persecution of Julian and his collaborators. It also served as justification for its assassination plot. There is another dimension to this mephitic myth that has largely remained unexplored.
Integrity initiative, a covert British intelligence information warfare operation was pivotal to perpetuating the narrative of Julian as Kremlin asset. This sordid tale reveals just how flimsy Western propaganda campaigns are concocted and then disseminated via compliant media. The world over, integrity initiative constructed clusters, clandestine networks of journalists, scholars, politicians, and military and intelligence operatives which the initiative could mobilize to disseminate black propaganda, therefore influencing policy and perceptions targeting domestic and overseas adversaries. One little known example of the potency of clusters was an aggressive campaign to falsely connect Julian with the Kremlin. The initiative Spanish cluster was particularly instrumental in this regard.
Its ranks include a number of prominent Spanish journalists, academics, think tank representatives, lawmakers from several parties, government ministers, and military officials. Leaked initiative documents detail how this nexus successfully subverted the Spanish political process. In June 2018, Pedro Banos, a colonel in the Spanish army and formerly chief of counterintelligence and security for the European Army Corps, was to become director of Spain's National Security Department. Banos had repeatedly appeared on RT and Sputnik in the months prior and publicly called for constructive harmonious relations between the European Union and Moscow. The initiative couldn't tolerate his appointment to such an influential post.
Within hours of learning this confidential information, the initiative's Spanish cluster covertly passed dossiers on Banos, looked to local and international media outlets, and activated its overseas clusters to publish negative comments about the proposed move on social media, therefore generating international support for its blockage. The initiative's London based team also set up a dedicated WhatsApp group to coordinate Twitter response, get contacts to expand awareness and get people retweeting the material. The cluster moreover sent dossiers of damaging information on Banos to leading Spanish newspapers including El Pais. As the day drew to a close it was confirmed Banos was no longer in the running for the position. Conducting destabilizing information warfare operations in Spain hadn't always been so easy for the integrity initiative.
An internal file, why is it so difficult to address the Russia issue in Spain and what should be done, spells out in some detail the issues the organization hitherto encountered in this regard. Most among these, Moscow wasn't perceived as a problem affecting Spain's national security, not least because the two countries have no history of conflict that could be exploited to terrify and rile the Spanish public. Pro Russian narratives were said to often pervade at all levels of Spanish society. Citizens and officials alike widely believed Moscow was humiliated in the 19 nineties when western powers break clear agreements on new NATO expansion and that Russia has a natural right to a sphere of regional influence. Overwhelmingly, Russia was seen in Spain as a potential source of investment, tourism, and business opportunities rather than a hostile adversary.
And politicians, journalists, diplomats, and citizens were moreover keen to pursue dialogue with Moscow to explore ways to restore Europe's relationship with the Kremlin with a tougher line from the EU or NATO on Russia mostly seen as counterproductive or even dangerous. Quite an insurmountable state of affairs until Julian's public commentary on the Catalonian independence vote in 2017. This handed the initiative all the ammunition it needed to boggiously present Moscow as a grave threat to Spanish democracy and territorial integrity while simultaneously reinforcing the spook concocted charge that the WikiLeaks founder was a Russian operative. The autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia held a referendum on independence on October 1, 2017. Madrid declared the vote illegal and in the weeks leading up to polling day, police cracked down on numerous large scale protests.
Photos and videos of these tumultuous scenes spread widely on social media. Many civic organizations and high profile figures disseminated news of these protests and police actions. Among this strong was Julian Assange. His Twitter post attracted thousands of retweets worldwide and were referenced in a number of RT and Sputnik reports on the events fold unfolding in Barcelona. As the time came for citizens to go to the polls, former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez asked Grupo Praiza, Spain's most powerful media conglomerate and owner of El Pais, the country's 2nd largest newspaper, serious of the situation.
El Pais duly began publishing extremely critical articles on the Catalonian situation on a daily basis. Among other things, these reports inferred the independence movement was somehow directed, financed, or influenced by Russia and that Spain more generally was subject to a dastardly Kremlin interference campaign via bots and trolls on social media and fake news at the very head of which Julian sat. Subsequently, the organization circulated a major study on Russian influence in the Catalan referendum process privately to key influences in Spain including the prime minister's office and throughout Europe on the integrity initiative network. An integrity initiative briefing note framing Russian meddling in the Catalan question offered insights, background information, and suggestions to contextualize and interpret papers headline allegations were markedly bold. The the initiative claimed Russia had activated its propaganda apparatus, including Julian and Edward Snowden, to contribute to destabilizing Spain.
Catalan pro independence activists who formed part of an extensive network of pawns cultivated by the Kremlin overseas may have somehow bought Assange's support. Evidence presented for these bombastic charges was nonexistent. For example, a small number of tweets posted by Julian in Catalan, which implied a decent knowledge of the independence movement's history, reportedly suggested persons unknown could have been feeding him the information. Likewise, Vladimir Putin's reference to the referendum in his speech was alleged to have insidiously confirmed some legitimacy on the vote. This was despite the Russian president vociferously backing Madrid in that oratory while declaring the unfolding crisis an internal affair of the kingdom of Spain.
The initiative inexplicably branded this banal diplomatic boilerplate a subtle indication the Kremlin was keeping a close eye on the crisis. Such paltry conspiratorial conjecture led the organization to conclude a classic control and absorption mechanism of the KGB had been deployed to support the independence movement and disrupt Spain to further Moscow's propaganda narrative about a dysfunctional weakening and almost collapsing EU. This bunkum was cited in a number of mainstream media articles including an El Pais article written by its editor David Allen Date. The fictional narrative that online support for Catalan independence was a Russian plot fronted by Julian conclusively minted, a trickle of disinformation became a deluge with El Pais leading the charge. It published stories on the topic almost every day for weeks thereafter replete with slick charts and graphics widely recycled by other news outlets.
All that hubbub combined with the initiatives dodgy dossier reaching the deaths of high ranking politicians in Madrid was instrumental in Spain's defense and foreign ministers announcing in November 2017 that Russian based Twitter accounts had used social media to massively publicize the separatist cause and swing public opinion behind it in the lead up to the referendum. So it was the next month. Allan Dettet was invited to prevent his findings to the British Parliament's Digital Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, which was conducting an inquiry into fake news.
Speaker 1: Do you have evidence that Russian government is seeking to interfere with the referendum in Catalonia? The only evidence I
Speaker 2: have as a journalist is that, Russian state affiliated TVs have been openly spreading propaganda that benefits, those who want independence in Catalonia.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm I think I said more in the second answer, because then I'm interested in the relationship between the Russian government and the Russian affiliated Yeah. I mean, you're talking about Spoke Nation. Fully owned by them. Okay. Okay.
So so you would say that and you think that's sanctioned
Speaker 2: by the Russian government? Well, they are funded by the Kremlin. And as I said, they are their editor in chief is Margarita Simonian. She's a Russian journalist close to Putin. I mean, you can do research on her, who appointed her.
And, I would seriously look into Arty and Sputnik and what information they do and what they cover here in the United Kingdom about all sorts of issues, because I think it's worth seeing. And if I if I also may, like, the the state department in the United States has just requested them to register as foreign agents. Twitter has banned them from buying advertisement because they think it's propaganda, not advertisement for commercial issues. Issues.
Speaker 0: Julian has been invited to testify to the committee separately, but this was rescinded after an intervention from the foreign office. Accompanying Alendete were Francesco de Borja Lacheras, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations at Madrid office, and Myra Milosevic Khurasty, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at Elcano Institute. Both are members of Integrity Initiative Spanish cluster. The panel of lawmakers was, to say the least, of receptive audience. With the Catalan assembly elections mere days away, the committee thought it a particularly interesting time to discuss this issue.
Chair Damien Collins also appears to have attended an integrity initiative event convened in February 2016. The Spanish trio's assertions met no challenge or criticism as they rattled off virtually verbatim various bogus hypotheses and claims from the initiative's briefing paper. Milosevic Jurastik declared, the complexity of the combination of different instruments used during the referendum in Catalonia, including Joe Julian's social media activities, meant it was impossible there wasn't a determined Kremlin hybrid warfare strategy at work in the breakaway region. She was nonetheless forced to admit, I do not have material to justify that. Still, the Spaniards easily convinced the committee that Russian interference was so huge and oppressive that he could not move for it.
The parliamentarians asked whether Moscow had sought to interfere with the referendum's outcome or if there was any other specific objective in Arty and Sputnik's coverage of the violent scenes that unfolded in Barcelona. The witnesses were at a loss. The the sheriff repeatedly stated, we have no specific evidence, and we do not know, while Allan Dette unconvincedly contended the only evidence he could provide was that Russian state affiliated media organizations had reported on the events in the first place. While the MPs clearly weren't interested in seriously probing the integrity initiative trio's assertions, hacker and activist MC McGrath was and submitted a detailed withering assessments of the committee in response. McGrath identified numerous instances of misrepresentation of data sources use of inaccurate information lack of attention to detail and poor research methodology which resulted in exceptionally misleading conclusions being presented to the parliamentary panel.
The sheer scale of the lies distortions exaggerations misrepresentations and exceptionally poor attention to detail uncovered by Mark McGrath is quite extraordinary. For example, numerous El Pais reports alleged there was a suspiciously large number of tweets about Catalonia from Russian bots and trolls, in particular retweets of RT and Sputnik as well as Julian's personal account. McGrath's analysis of 23,418 retweets of Julian's post discussing Catalonia in September October 2017 showed just 2.1% emanated from accounts located in Russia. This was entirely in line with world population ratios and in no way indicated disproportionate interest in the situation in Catalonia from Russia. In fact, those retweeting Julian were overwhelmingly based in the US.
Even more damningly, McGrath found Julian featured in just 17 of 596 stories about Catalonia published by Arty and Sputnik from September to December 2017. Meanwhile, of the 1508 tweets shared by the pair's English and Spanish language Twitter accounts on Catalonia within this time frame, a mere 22, 1.46 percent, mentioned him. Ironically, El Pais published considerably more stories referencing Julian than Sputnik and RT combined during the same period. McGrath concluded, claims about fake news, especially those published in the media and brought before legislative bodies need to be more thoroughly scrutinized. It is important to conduct further research to understand how widespread of an issue fake news about fake news is and how these unfounded allegations come about.
It is necessary to explore how claims of fake news can themselves be used as a manipulative tactic and understand the impact this has on society. Despite this savage indictment of the trio's credibility, the committee appeared unmoved, issuing an interim report in July 2018 quoting them at some length. It stated unequivocally, during the referendum campaign, Russia provoked conflict through a mixture of misleading information and disinformation between people within Spain and between Spain and other member states in the EU and in NATO. Even more significantly, in March that year, the initiative manufactured controversy led to Ecuador cutting off Julian's Internet access and preventing him from receiving any visitors other than his lawyers. It was argued that his social media activities put at risk the good relations Ecuador maintains with the UK, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations.
As Glenn Greenwald documented at the time, this resulted from serious diplomatic pressure being applied to Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno from the Spanish government in Madrid and its NATO allies. The escalation of tensions with Spain which has diplomatic ties to Ecuador threatens Assange's asylum in a way that the long standing pressure from the US and UK could not. Ecuador is being forced to choose between maintaining their relations with other states and upholding Assange's asylum. That same month, foreign minister Alan Duncan had a one to one meeting with then prime minister Theresa May in which he was instructed to butter up Moreno and facilitate Julian's removal from the embassy. This precipitated a year of diplomatic schmoozing including state funded trips to London for high ranking the Ecuadorian officials and visits in the opposite direction by British security and intelligence figures.
A month after Julian's dramatic arrest in April 2019, trade minister George Holmgerry flew to Quito to sign London's Andean Countries trade agreement. Recall the words of Niall Smelzer on how Julian was systematically slammed to divert attention from the crimes he exposed and how once he'd been dehumanized through isolation, ridicule, and shame, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide. The initiative actions went an enormous way to isolating Julian, severely curtailing his already limited access to the outside world, laying the foundations for his removal from the embassy and resulting in incarceration and consigning him to daily misery and physical and psychological torture. This egregious saga is a particularly pitiful example of the ease with which Western intelligence agencies can flood corporate media with outright fiction on the flimsiest of bases. In the knowledge credulous, pliable journalists will peddle their fallacious lies as fact in the manner of religious conviction and never face consequences.
If and when their lies are exposed, they can pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened, safely clinging to their legitimizing awards, sanitize Wikipedia entries, and plaudits.