More than anything else, the pardon should focus on the “whistleblower” activities of Wikileaks. That is, they unveiled a *lot* of criminal activities carried out by the US Intelligence and federal Law Enforcement community, and the Democrat party along with the foreign powers that sought (and still seek) to gain influence in the US government *through* the Democrat party.
In other words, prosecute those who dangerously broke the law, not those who fingered them for doing so.
The case law for this is obvious: the Pentagon Papers case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson (LBJ) Administration “systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress”.
For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.
Bottom line: BOTH Democrat and Republican administrations broke the law, yet sought to punish the whistleblower for revealing their crimes.
Yet, it should also be noted that that the LBJ administration officials were never charged; but only after the Nixon administration officials were fingered was the case against Ellsberg dropped. So, double standards.
So the bottom line is that Assange *should* be pardoned, the pardon *coupled* with prosecution of those federal agencies and individuals who blatantly broke the law.
And those criminals went to jail right? </s>