Assange lawyer Geoffrey Robertson was granted a meeting with Obama administration insiders and had asked if they "really wanted" the publisher so they could access his whistleblowers and because he warned that "there are dangerous precedents here," Robertson said they responded simply:

We don't want him, but the Pentagon does, and the Pentagon may eventually get its way.

Robertson spoke to Obama administration insiders after he learned of a secret grand jury they had convened against Assange in 2010, he explained to Phillip Adams on ABC's Radio National on Thursday. Robertson reminded them that charging a journalist under national security laws had serious First Amendment implications, but the Obama team was already aware of the kind of precedent it would set. If this goes through, journalists will essentially be silenced from exposing government secrets – not only systemically, but through fear of life in prison.