Texas Rep. Ron Paul doesn’t think the government should charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with treason, arguing that the Australian who facilitated the unprecedented document dump should be considered part of the free press.
“In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth,” Paul wrote on Twitter Friday. “In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.”
He elaborated his position on the Fox Business Network: “This whole notion that Assange, who’s an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren’t they jumping to a wild conclusion? This is media, isn’t it? I mean, why don’t we prosecute the New York Times or anybody that releases this?”
Paul, a libertarian-minded Republican who ran for president in 2008, differs from many in his party.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has called Assange a “terrorist,” for example, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Assange “an enemy combatant” who “should be in jail for the rest of his life.”
Post was updated to correctly identify the Fox Business Network.