> You're making three assumptions:

I don't make those assumptions. I'll explain:

> 1) that anyone who criticizes Assange is automatically an apologist for state-sanctioned crimes;

There are perhaps many valid reasons to criticize Assange. To me the test is whether the critic mentions any of the state-sanctioned crimes at all, or just focuses on Assange's character.

> 2) that the good things done by Wikileaks in its early days are entirely thanks to one man, Assange;

Assange took on the burden of being the public face of Wikileaks, and has paid the price via the loss of his freedom.

> 3) that without Wikileaks there would have been nobody willing or able to expose state-sanctioned crimes.

Wikileaks is a platform intended to help more people expose state-sanctioned crimes. The Iraq/Afghan war logs depended on someone submitting them, as did the rest of the information.

> 1) It's possible to criticize Assange and state-sanctioned crimes at the same time.

Of course it is, but few critics of Assange do so. Instead they make Assange's character into the story.

> 2) It took many people to make Wikileaks happen. Those people who made Wikileaks possible were mostly driven away by Assange's reckless and toxic behavior.

This is a rumor, which may or may not be true. I don't think it's all that relevant to the discussion. All small teams end up with some drama, and the reports of Assange being "reckless" should be taken with an appropriate grain of salt.

> 3) Wikileaks is far from the only organization exposing state-sanctioned crimes by publishing leaks from whistleblowers. However it is by far the most reckless. Wikileaks does not respect even the most basic rules of journalism; for example they routinely expose personal information that directly endanger the lives of people.

This point is frequently cited in isolation. But if you recall the series of events, Wikileaks was collaborating with the NYT and various other papers on the release of the Iraq and Afghan war logs. Soon after, the NYT turned on Assange and began publishing stories about the rape accusations while ignoring the substance of the big stories. In effect, the respectable journalists abandoned Wikileaks. Wikileaks had always mentioned that it preferred to partner with other journalists to avoid any accidental release of information that could cause harm. There were some missteps, but the real issue is that the NYT gave up on doing investigative journalism in partnership with Wikileaks.

> My criticism of Assange is not that he is egotistical. It is that his ego caused him to become a nuisance to the cause of holding states accountable for their crimes.

Assange should never have been the story in the first place. Wikileaks needed a public face, and Assange filled that role, but I think it's unfair to claim he is/was a nuisance.

> How else do you explain his collaboration with Putin's Russia, who have committed countless state-sponsored crimes, to help manipulate US public opinion with the goal of getting a notorious criminal elected in the US? How exactly does this serve the cause of holding criminal governments accountable?

You are making a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions in this last bit. Assange stated his strong opposition to both of the 2016 presidential candidates. Of course something like Wikileaks can be weaponized, and according to your point it was weaponized in 2016.

I'm not sure how you can argue that releasing emails sent by a politician is somehow bad if meant to change public opinion. Obviously if there is content in the emails that should change public opinion, then releasing them is a good thing. Only if public opinion was not changed would the exercise have been worthless. While I would have preferred HRC to Trump as president, there was a lot in the emails that should have been disturbing to voters.

In my view, the biggest misstep by HRC's campaign was that it tried to deny and ignore the Wikileaks publications of emails. People generally respect leaders who own up to their past actions, statements, etc. If a politician gives a talk at Goldman and says the opposite of what is being said on the campaign trail, that is a problem (or at least I think it should be).

I think that in order to make the point you intend to make you would have to show that Wikileaks received significant information about Trump but withheld it from publication to benefit Trump. From there it would take even more proof to show that Russia was the beneficiary, and still more to show that Russia was the intentional beneficiary due to Assange's preferences.

If you zoom out, Assange/Wikileaks' work, has been overwhelmingly non-partisan and journalistic. Who knows what other important stories have been suppressed thanks to Assange's confinement.