It’s the tribal nature of humans - they try to make everyone they like flawless and everyone they hate completely flawed.

Assange is a colossal douchebag, rapist and Russian asset, who is terrified of faceing the consequences of his own actions. In November 2010, Sweden issued a European arrest warrant for Assange, for questioning in a Swedish investigation, He was suspected of rape of a lesser degree, unlawful coercion and multiple cases of sexual molestation. After losing his appeal against the warrant, he breached bail and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

He’s a Russian spy stooge. He’s lucky he’s not in a black site for life

Early on, the Russian asset released some genuine information in order to establish some bona fides. But since then, he’s used his platform to create nothing but instability and strife. Never forget, the “pizzagate” bullshit came directly from WikiLeaks.

I generally agree with your broader message, but not this sentence:

You don’t get to violate a law and then claim protections of that law itself.

Someone violating a law does not remove them from protection provided by that law. Someone who commits rape, for example, does not have legal protection against themselves being raped removed.

EDIT: As trivia, though, there are mostly-historical cases where people can have the protection of the law removed from them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw

An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, and outlawing is the most extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, and persisted throughout the Middle Ages.

Piracy would have something similar apply:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostis_humani_generis

Hostis humani generis (Latin for ‘an enemy of mankind’) is a legal term of art that originates in admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law,[when?] pirates and slavers were already held to be beyond legal protection and so could be dealt with by any nation, even one that had not been directly attacked.

A comparison can be made between this concept and the common law “writ of outlawry”, which declared a person outside the king’s law, a literal out-law, subject to violence and execution by anyone. The ancient Roman civil law concept of proscription, and the status of homo sacer conveyed by proscription may also be similar.

Perhaps the oldest of the laws of the sea is the prohibition of piracy, as the peril of being set upon by pirates, who are not motivated by national allegiance, is shared by the vessels and mariners of all nations, and thus represents a crime upon all nations. Since classical antiquity, pirates have been held to be individuals waging private warfare, a private campaign of sack and pillage, against not only their victims, but against all nations, and thus, those engaging in piracy hold the particular status of being regarded as hostis humani generis, the enemy of humanity. Since piracy anywhere is a peril to every mariner and ship everywhere, it is held to be the universal right and the universal duty of all nations, regardless of whether their ships have been beset by the particular band of pirates in question, to capture, try by a regularly constituted court-martial or admiralty court (in extreme circumstances, by means of a drumhead court-martial convened by the officers of the capturing ship), and, if found guilty, to execute the pirate via means of hanging from the yard-arm of the capturing ship, an authoritative custom of the sea.

There are a few laws – such as child sex tourism performed by US citizens abroad – where the US asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction (in that case, because wealthy US citizens discovered that they could just go to countries with corrupt law enforcement/judiciary and buy them off; even if they can beat the local justice system, the American one will go after them using American anti-child-sex-tourism law). Same thing for some anti-terrorism laws. My bet is that this is probably one of those.

googles

Yeah, sounds like it.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10291

The United States’ indictment alleges that Assange committed one count of conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371) to commit computer intrusion in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) (18 U.S.C. § 1030).

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/extraterritorial-application-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act

A brazen and sophisticated computer intrusion into the records of over 145 million Americans launched from computer hackers based in China led to recent criminal prosecutions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. [1] Courts are willing to extend American law beyond U.S. boundaries often when criminal misconduct takes place overseas that injures Americans. The Constitution grants Congress broad powers to enact laws with extraterritorial scope.[2] The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (“CFAA”), is one such statute that provides criminal and civil remedies resulting from unauthorized access to computers used in interstate commerce or communications.[3] And, it further provides for extraterritorial jurisdiction for criminal or civil violations of the CFAA.

The CFAA’s potential reach goes beyond U.S. borders and packs a jurisdictional punch that will likely be able to bring a foreign party into an American court. Thus, a computer hacker outside the U.S. who causes injury[26] here is likely not immune from a civil or criminal action.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-charges-against-julian-assange-explained

The indictment includes one count of conspiracy to hack a computer to disclose classified information that “could be used to injure” the U.S. According to the indictment, Assange “conspired” with Manning by helping her crack a Defense Department computer password in March 2010 that provided access to a U.S. government network that stored classified information and communications.

Hmm. That does raise some interesting questions, though. Assange was charged with conspiracy to violate the CFAA. The justification for the CFAA being extraterritorial would be that you can access computers across international lines. In theory, Assange might have conspired with people in the US to commit murder, and I don’t think that that would have applied. I wonder if there’s some sort of doctrine where conspiracy to commit a crime has extraterritorial jurisdiction apply if it would apply to the original crime.

googles

Ah, sounds like it.

https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/guide/the-practitioners-guide-global-investigations/2022/article/extraterritoriality-the-us-perspective

Extraterritoriality: The US Perspective

In addition, courts have reasoned that ‘the extraterritorial reach of an ancillary offense such as conspiracy is coterminous with that of the underlying statute’.

what if instead of manipulating the electing he had sat in Canada an launched rockets across Niagara falls in to the USA? His actions have effects inside the USA and the victims are American criticizes, so America claims jurisdiction.

Assange’s lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said the sentence is likely to be much shorter than that.

Manning alone got 35 years, Assange would certainly get far worse than her.

I understand that the US offered to let Assange serve his prison time in Australia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/julian-assange-extradition-appeal/2021/07/07/41bc3914-df2e-11eb-a27f-8b294930e95b_story.html

According to the High Court, the United States consented to transferring Assange to his native country of Australia to serve any prison sentence.