【Romance Archives】

Julian Assange,Romance Archives cooped up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, seems to still be having trouble deciding whether or not he'll make good on his promise to be extradited to the U.S. because former president Barack Obama commuted the sentence of U.S. whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Appearing Tuesday night on Australian TV news show The Project, Assange was grilled by reporter Waleed Aly about his promise to accept extradition to the United States if Manning was released, a promise Assange has recently backtracked on.

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In a tense exchange, Aly pushed Assange on the point that it now appears Assange will only leave the Ecuadorian Embassy if he strikes a deal regarding his own case with the United States. "I'm not a complete idiot!" an exasperated Assange responded, before noting he instead expects there to be a discussion regarding the conditions of the extradition.

Assange also told Aly that he believes Obama commuted Manning strictly to get revenge on him for WikiLeaks' role in leaking documents that affected the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In the interview, Assange claimed:

"Let’s look at it from [the Obama administration's] perspective. If we give Chelsea Manning clemency, what’s the result? It’s going to make life hard for Assange because either he’s going to get extradited to the United States or we’re going to show he’s a liar and both of those things are going to make life hard for Assange, and, therefore, it’s okay to pardon Chelsea Manning. And that’s what happened.”

The questioning came after a topsy-turvy week in which Assange made the promise, seemed to double-down on the promise, and then backed away.

Shortly before Obama issued his final pardons and sentence commutations during his final week in office, WikiLeaks sent the following tweet.

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A few days later, on Jan. 17, 2017, Obama did just that, commuting the rest of Manning's sentence and setting her release from prison for May 2017. The night of Obama's announcement, WikiLeaks stayed the course, posting a few more tweets saying that Assange was moving forward on keeping his promise.

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By the next day, Jan. 18, Assange's lawyer, though, was already telling media outlets that Assange wouldn't be going anywhere and that the proper "conditions" of Assange's offer weren't met.

But the reason given by Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, was semantics. Pollack told The Hill, "Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately."

Still, a tweet sent the same day as Pollack's comments made the same case that Assange made during his television appearance on Tuesday night.

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Assange's new claim about Obama is yet another twist in the ongoing saga, but he could soon have other concerns besides his ongoing battle with the U.S. On Tuesday, Sweden said it's closing in on deciding whether or not to indict Assange on rape charges related to an incident in August 2010.

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