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 must've wondered what hit them.

"We no longer have a PM who boasts about having Mike Pompeo on speed dial. They weren't aware of how much things had shifted in Australia."Delegates told the room that not only had the government changed in Australia, but public sentiment had as well, with the vast majority of Australians now wanting Assange to return home.

Also present was Julian Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton and Rohan Wenn, an adviser to independent MP Andrew Wilkie, who could not make the trip. "They were saying Julian had to face justice and that he was avoiding justice by fighting extradition. These guys were arguing back at the DoJ. All of them did," he said.

Dr Ryan said Mr Joyce suggested to the meeting that political considerations inevitably played a role in these sorts of matters. "I'd taken some Chinese newspapers with me. And I said, 'Look, here's evidence in the Chinese press where this case has been used as an example of the US not respecting freedom of the press,'" she said.

"It would be fair to say within that hyper-partisan environment, they didn't know what to make of this group of assorted Australian politicians who on paper had so much that divided them, that were all pushing for this same outcome, and all prized Julian's freedom." The meeting was part of a whirlwind trip where the MPs met with Democratic and Republican congressmen and women as well as the US Department of State."We didn't come away from Washington with a rolled gold guarantee. Our job was to rekindle the campaign to remind Washington about the importance of Julian Assange and of truth-telling," he said.

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