MSS W media.

This week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has lived for years.

He was charged with a conspiracy to commit a computer intrusion by agreeing to help former Army intel officer

Chelsea Manning defeat an encrypted password. Many critics of the prosecution have argued that this indictment will chill press freedom.

Should we be concerned about the indictment of Assange?

What can we expect from this case going forward?

Let's get on topic. Welcome to On Topic, a weekly in-depth look at a topic that helps us understand the week's news. My name is Renato Mariati. I'm a former federal

prosecutor of practicing lawyer and a CNN legal analyst and I'm joined by my

friend Patty Vasquez, a WGM radio host who will

join us regularly on this podcast.

Well, Maddie, I will, I'm glad to be back.

I am, I've lost just a little bit of sleep over this past week trying a case on behalf of my client

But it is good to be back doing this podcast. I'm so grateful that Ashaha did a good job holding the fort while I was gone

well we all miss you and it was great to hang out with us and have great conversations

uh... but uh..., happy to have you back.

Absolutely. Well, I will tell you, as soon as I poked my head up once the, uh, once the trial was over,

there was an insane amount of legal news it was hard to decide what to do this on because

obviously the redacted bar report by it's called the bar report supposedly it's going to be the Mueller report, but it's so redacted. I think at this point it's the bar report. It's coming out

Michael Avenotti was indicted for 36 counts. Obviously not a good situation for him. Gregory Craig was charged

with crimes for lying to Mueller's team. So there's a lot of potential legal news and I

know a lot of our listeners are not are wondering why

...