Hillary:

“The bottom line is that he has to answer for what he has done,” Clinton said later Thursday, at a speaking event with husband Bill Clinton.

The judge:

He later appeared in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where District Judge Michael Snow wasted no time in finding him guilty of breaching his bail conditions, flatly rejecting his assertion that he had not had a fair hearing and a reasonable excuse for not appearing.

“Mr. Assange’s behavior is that of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests,” Snow said. “He hasn’t come close to establishing ‘reasonable excuse.’”

Assange waved to the packed public gallery as he was taken to the cells. His next appearance was set for May 2 via prison video-link in relation to the extradition case.

Assange’s attorney, Jennifer Robinson, said he will fight any extradition to the U.S.

“This sets a dangerous precedent for all journalist and media organizations in Europe and around the world,” she said. “This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.”

 from this AP story:

Marcy Wheeler:

As Ecuador Harbored Assange, It Was Subjected to Threats and Leaks

By Nicholas Casey & Jo Becker @ NYTimes.com, April 12

Juicy long article, I excerpt about 1/4 here to give three examples. My cynicism confirmed:

The secrets came directly from the phones of President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador: intimate pictures of him and his family on vacation, text messages from his wife, even a photograph of the president himself in a posh bedroom, eating a lobster in bed.

The material, published last month on an anonymous website, was particularly embarrassing because Mr. Moreno was in a bruising national fight over his austerity measures. But rather than mount a defense, the president played the victim: He blamed WikiLeaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, had spent the last seven years holed up in the country’s London embassy.

WikiLeaks’ actions were “despicable,” said the country’s vice president on television, vowing to take action. The group denied leaking the information, but on Thursday Ecuador made good on its threat — opening the door to British police officers who carted away Mr. Assange.

With that, Mr. Assange’s long refuge inside the Ecuadorean Embassy finally came to an end, the capstone of an international cat-and-mouse game [....]

In October 2016, as WikiLeaks was releasing thousands of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and the personal account of John D. Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign, Ecuador restricted Mr. Assange’s access to the internet, citing his interference in a foreign election.

The United States may have played a central role in the effort to corral Mr. Assange. On Oct. 14, with the emails upending the campaign and the election just weeks away, a confidante of the Clintons and a top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry showed up at a dinner party hosted by the Ecuadorean ambassador before a ball, lingering with him as other guests left, several attendees said.

Mr. Assange’s internet was curtailed by the Ecuadorean Embassy the very next day.

But WikiLeaks quickly retaliated, issuing a cryptic message that a leak against Ecuador was on its way. The tactic seemed to work. Two months later, Mr. Assange said in an interview that his internet had been restored.[....]

“I inherited this situation,” Mr. Moreno said in a video address this week.

Fernando Cutz, a former senior adviser to H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser, and a Latin America policy specialist at the White House, acknowledged that American officials regularly spoke with their Ecuadorean counterparts about handing over Mr. Assange.

But Mr. Cutz argued that Ecuadorean officials did not simply cave to American demands. They wanted Mr. Assange gone as well, he said.

“We would definitely raise it with Ecuador,” Mr. Cutz said. “It was a bilateral irritant, without a doubt. But I don’t think the U.S. pressure ended up being the reason for this move. Bettering relations with the U.S. was just the icing on the cake for Moreno. Assange was his own worst enemy.” [.....]

The ACLU: a worrisome indictment:

I checked: I love Wikileaks was 10/10/16

Assange tried to use embassy as 'centre for spying', says Ecuador's Moreno

Exclusive: President says he has it in writing from UK that WikiLeaks cofounder’s rights will be respected

@ TheGuardian.com, April 14