Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. defense analyst who leaked The Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the New York Times regarding the U.S. government's activities in Vietnam, passed away yesterday at the age of 92.
Ellsberg's passing comes only 72 hours after defeated former President Donald Trump was charged with 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act - the same statute under which Ellsberg was prosecuted. Of course, there are significant differences between these two breaches. Ellsberg leaked The Pentagon Papers to expose the deceit of the prosecution of the War in Vietnam and bring to an end. Trump is hoarding classified documents including nuclear information and battle plans for his own personal ends. Ellsberg was prepared to go to prison for the rest of his life. Trump isn't prepared to spend an hour in prison.
Indeed, Trump denied taking the documents and then when this was discovered not to be true, he claimed the documents belonged to him. Ultimately, the charges against Ellsberg were dropped because of governmental misconduct in collecting evidence against him. Trump claims Special Prosecutor Jack Smith "planted" evidence but this has long been his modus operandi.
Loathe as they would be to admit it, there are some areas where Daniel Ellsberg and Donald Trump share common ground - a distrust of the U.S. government and making excuses for Russia. Ellsberg believed everything the U.S. government said is a lie while Trump has long claimed the FBI and DOJ are corrupt. Ellsberg has supported so-called whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning whose actions benefitted Russia and has claimed the U.S. and NATO provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine. Trump's admiration for Russia runs deep as does his contempt for NATO and its member allies and much of the Republican Party has followed suit. While their motivations for their behavior is different the end result is the same - giving aid and comfort to Putin.
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