When the accusations first surfaced, some people at Wikileaks suggested that he does the reasonable thing and stand temporarily down from his role at Wikileaks

When the accusations first surfaced, some people at Wikileaks suggested that he does the reasonable thing and stand temporarily down from his role at Wikileaks while he deals with whatever clearly personal issues he has with the Swedish law. Assange didn't take kindly to their suggestion, and they didn't last long at wikileaks. Much more convenient for him to create a claim conspiracy theory and take cover in the hard and actually risky work done by wikileaks, and say that if he goes down, he will take the whole organization with him.