>President Donald Trump’s attorneys made a solid case for preemptively pardoning Julian Assange in a motion to dismiss a WikiLeaks-related lawsuit against the Trump campaign.
>While preemptive pardons are rare — they are not unheard of.
>The motion, filed on December 29, was in response to a lawsuit by two Democratic Party donors who allege that the Trump campaign and former adviser Roger Stone conspired with Russians to publish the leaked Democratic National Committee emails.
>In defense of the Trump campaign, the 32-page filing by Michael A. Carvin argues that the publishing of the DNC leak passes both aspects of the Bartnicki First Amendment Test.
>The first part of the case law is that a defendant may not be held liable for a disclosure of stolen information if it deals with “a matter of public concern.”
>Addressing this portion, Carvin’s filing asserts that there can be “no serious doubt” that the disclosures from WikiLeaks satisfied the “newsworthy” and “public concern” portion of the test.
>The second portion of the test requires that the speaker (or publisher) was not “involved” in the theft.
>Given that WikiLeaks does not steal or hack the documents that are provided to them, and most rational people would agree that all of their leaks have been newsworthy, the Bartnicki First Amendment Test is not only satisfied by the Trump campaign — but also by Assange and his organization.
tl;dr a lawsuit filed by democrat donors could have the unintended consequence of exonerating Julian Assange and Wikileaks under US law
