No Evidence that Assange Induced Manning to Leak

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that federal investigators “have been unable to uncover evidence that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange induced an Army private to leak government documents to his website.”  This development, if it holds, appears to undermine DOJ’s hopes of prosecuting Assange as a conspirator to Bradley Manning’s undoubtedly illegal leak of classified information.  It appears to leave only the possibility of charging Assange with some combination of possessing, distributing, and publishing classified information, which are harder charges to bring, and which are also charges that, if successful, would be the most damaging to traditional American press freedoms.