On the 4th of July, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that, if Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange is convicted in the United States, the Statue of Liberty should be dismantled, reports the Mexico Daily Post. Assange is currently imprisoned by the United Kingdom pending an extradition to the United States on charges under the U.S.

Our country cannot function without a diligent free press that provides the American people with the access to information and education they need to hold their elected officials accountable. Indeed, to limit that ability is a far greater threat to national security than anything leaked by Chelsea Manning or published by Julian Assange.

In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit dedicated to promoting press freedom, came out Friday against efforts by the U.S. to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Robert Mahoney, the CPJ 's deputy director, took issue with the Trump administration's pursuit of the jailed WikiLeaks founder ahead of his extradition trial starting Monday in London.