The founder of the website Cryptome.org has asked to be indicted for violating the Espionage Act.    Cryptome’s founder John Young says he should be added as a co-defendant in the prosecution of WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange because he published the same leaked government documents at the center of the U.S. case against Assange. 

Washington, December 2 (RHC)-- The founder of the website Cryptome.org has written to the U.S. Justice Department with an unusual request:  He is asking to be indicted for violating the Espionage Act.  Cryptome’s founder John Young says he should be added as a co-defendant in the prosecution of WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange because he published the same leaked government documents at the center of the U.S. case against Assange. 

While Assange faces 175 years in U.S. prison if he is extradited, the U.S. government has never moved to prosecute Young, who says he published the documents two days prior to WikiLeaks.  Earlier this week, The New York Times and four international newspapers called on Biden to drop the charges against Assange, saying “publishing is not a crime.”