Inside the decadelong, global pursuit of Julian Assange that ended in a plea deal met with praise and scorn

CNN —

The United States’ pursuit of Julian Assange for leaking state secrets has played out for more than a decade in courtrooms and government offices across the world, from Washington, DC, to London to Stockholm and Quito, Ecuador.

But on Wednesday it came to a sudden, somewhat uneasy end, when the Wikileaks founder pleaded guilty in a US federal court to a single felony charge related to his alleged role in orchestrating one of the largest-ever breaches of US classified military and diplomatic documents. The plea deal allows Assange to avoid prison in the US and return to his native Australia.

Discussions between Assange’s legal team and US prosecutors ebbed and flowed across three US presidencies during his yearslong battle to avoid extradition to the US where he faced a trial on 18 felony counts.

Australian diplomats brought up the plight of Assange every chance they got during the past three years of the Biden administration, a stark contrast to their behavior during the Trump years, when they largely avoided the matter due to concerns it could harm the broader bilateral relationship between the two countries, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

“That never came up in our conversations,” said David Stilwell, the State Department assistant secretary for the Pacific region during the Trump administration. “Not a word.”

But in recent months, talks heated up, in part thanks to the efforts of a left-leaning Australian government that came to power two years ago, giving Assange a powerful ally as he waged a protracted legal battle from a London prison. Recent rulings in UK courts favoring Assange in his extradition fight also provided key gains in the saga.

At a meeting in the Oval Office