Screenshot / YouTube, BBC News

The U.S. Justice Department is now weighing whether it will permit Julian Assange to plead guilty to a lesser charge of mishandling classified information.

Assange could be released from a British jail should the deal go through, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The well-known WikiLeaks founder has faced a years-long battle against the British government to stop from being sent to the U.S. to be put on trial after he allegedly published thousands of U.S. military records and diplomatic cables around 2010, which the U.S. government has deemed “confidential,” according to the outlet.

Assange has been in a London prison since 2019, the same year U.S. prosecutors moved to charge him under a U.S. espionage law.

DOJ officials and attorneys for Assange have reportedly held talks in recent months about what a plea deal may end up looking like in order to end the lengthy legal battles.

Charges Assange faces include 18 counts of conspiring to disclose classified information and hack a military computer in relation to publishings from WikiLeaks. HIs legal team has argued that Assange was acting much like a journalist, as he had simply published information that he had received.

A potential Assange extradition would be a political hot potato for the Biden administration, as there are many similarities between his work and that of the media, whose right to post content is typically protected by the First Amendment, per the WSJ.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.