Assange will be sacrificed and discarded by journalists once no longer useful. This is a long-standing practice to assure official protection and privilege. Assange once advocated this warning but was eventully coopted by journalists who joined his team and pushed the outreach to duplicitous journalism. Braying about threat to journalism by Assange's prosecution is a deception op conducted in cooperation with authorities. Snowden's promoters have admitted consulting with USG on what to publish, what to redact, what to withhold. Barton Gellman describes his following this CYA standard procedure in Dark Mirror. WikiLeaks burned sources with loose security, incoherent management, Julian's vanity and opportunism, thinking he could use cohorts for his purpose without penalty. The indictment outlines the parties he enlisted, quite a few likely to have decided to cooperate, like Sabu, the "Teenager," maybe Appelbaum, others pseudonymed. Those he has manipulated will turn against him under pressure from prosecutors against them, their families and friends. Same happened to Manning, Swartz, kirakou, Hammond, long list of others. Snowden will eventually be handed over to USG by those he came to trust the most. Trust wears thin over time and goosed by planted suspicions and doubts, ambition, need for income. And fans are notoriously fickle, don't give a shit after the excitement wanes, smears are spread, bots and media countermesures are unleashed, rewards are offered like Greenwald's "irresistables" undergirding The Intercept. And there is always the AP option for terminating JA. Treachery of supporters is too.