Inside the closed-door meeting in Washington DC to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Inside a meeting room deep inside the Robert F Kennedy Building in Washington DC last September, representatives of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) must’ve wondered what hit them. A cross-party delegation of jet-lagged and obstinate Australian parliamentarians had just arrived to advocate for Julian Assange’s release. The officials were about to hear the kind of arguments that were not normally ventilated in the building known locally as “Main Justice”. The meeting lasted over an hour. Six of those present inside the room have described those conversations in various ways to ABC Investigations — including as being “robust”, “respectful” and…