LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump
offered to pardon Julian Assange if the WikiLeaks founder
provided the source for the hacking of Democratic National
Committee emails before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a
London court was told on Friday.
Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she observed a
meeting where former Republican U.S. Representative Dana
Rohrabacher and Charles Johnson, an associate known to have
close ties to the Trump campaign, made the offer.
"The proposal put forward by Congressman Rohrabacher was
that Mr. Assange identify the source for the 2016 election
publications in return for some form of pardon," Robinson said
in a witness statement given to the court.
Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting to stop being sent
to the United States, where he is charged with conspiring to
hack government computers and violating an espionage law over
the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)