The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has pushed back at the Australian government’s complaints that the pursuit of Assange had dragged on too long, with the top diplomat declaring that the WikiLeaks founder is alleged to have “risked very serious harm to our national security”.

Uh, does anyone want to remind these guys about who they elected as their previous president? They should do a bit of introspection if they want to address “national security threats”.