Sorry but you're not correct. Here's [0] the law he's being charged of violating. You'll notice that intent is the crux of the disclosure subsections he's being

Sorry but you're not correct. Here's [0] the law he's being charged of violating. You'll notice that intent is the crux of the disclosure subsections he's being charged under. He's being charged with publishing the information he received with the intent to do harm to the US. That's what the prosecution will argue and his defense for those charges will be entirely about intent. Independently intent would be a difficult thing to prove but his public actions and the conspiracy charges with will be used to establish intent. Like I said, he wants to claim all of the protections of journalism while he's acting as a spymaster. I don't really think it's possible to claim (objectively) any of Assange's actions with Wikileaks could be considered journalism. Besides not really practicing anything that might be considered journalism he also exercised a lot of editorial control in what Wikileaks didn't or wouldn't publish. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793