The ‘Enemy of the People’ Is the Real Target of the Assange Prosecution

The conservative commentator Ann Coulter said The New York Times’ reporters had done something that “could have gotten them executed.” Bill Kristol, now known as a prominent anti–Donald Trump Republican, said the Justice Department “had an obligation to consider prosecution.” The radio host Rush Limbaugh declared, “I think 80 percent of their subscribers have to be jihadists. If you look at The New York Times and the kind of stories they’re leaking and running and the information they’re getting, it’s clear that they’re trying to help the terrorists. In 2006, right-wing-media figures were apoplectic over the exposure by The New York Times of a surveillance program for tracking financial transactions without warrants or subpoenas, including those of American citizens.