Citing the chilling effect that the creeping expansion of the law has on what information the public gets in a democracy, he expressed disappointment that the Biden administration had not dropped the Espionage Act charges against Mr. Assange.

“It’s clearly overly broad and does not just apply to people like me who had a security clearance. Assange is now feeling the weight of that,” he said, adding: “For 50 years I’ve been saying to journalists, ‘This thing was a loaded weapon looking at you.’”