Justice Department Preparing To Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange: WSJ

The U.S. Justice Department said it is planning to prosecute controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Sources told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the department is also hopeful it will get Assange ― who has been holed up in an Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012 ― into a U.S. courtroom.

Assange fled Sweden in 2012 over allegations of sexual assault and rape. Though prosecutors dropped the case last year, he still faces arrest for breaching bail conditions should he leave the embassy.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April 2017 that the arrest of Assange would become a priority for the Justice Department.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that WikiLeaks coordinated with Russian hackers to release emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating connections between WikiLeaks and Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump before he became president.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal.