In the same way that any foreign agency commits espionage by coercing citizens to give up secrets.
Behind every Aldrich Ames (for example) is a foreign agent who pays for or threatens to get the secrets and use them against our country.
Assange isn't just some innocent guy who has a website, he is a very famous hacker who goes by the handle Mendax. He had a history of breaking into the NSA in the 90s- a book was written about him and he had a mention in the movie Hackers 2. It is often asked how Manning was able to get the secrets he did- I have no doubt that he was just a conduit for Assange's hacking.
Manning's own words would probably make you doubt it. Pretty interesting reading actually.
‘I Can’t Believe What I’m Confessing to You’: The Wikileaks Chats
More interesting reading. Thanks for the information.
BTW. Two other things pop up. One is our secrets aren’t all that safe and two, how did he coerce the service guy to give up the info?
If there is evidence of Assange hacking government systems he ought to be tried for that.
But calling what he did with the papers from Manning ‘espionage’ is overstating the facts by several orders of magnitude. Manning is most deserving of an espionage trial, Assange, not so much.