On June 26, 2024 — after five years in HMP Belmarsh, seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and a 14-year U.S. prosecution effort — Julian Assange pleaded guilty to a single count under the Espionage Act of 1917 in a U.S. federal court in Saipan, was sentenced to time served, and flew home to Australia.

He is the only publisher in U.S. history to be convicted under the Espionage Act. Press-freedom organizations from the Committee to Protect Journalists to Reporters Without Borders to the Knight First Amendment Institute have warned that the conviction creates a precedent that endangers every reporter who publishes classified material.

We ask the President for a full pardon vacating that conviction and restoring the press-freedom line that his case put at risk.