... the charges leaked in 2018. They had probably been filed in 2010.

There was even an administration change in between, which means that it is likely whoever followed up on these charges within the US government had their eye on the prize for more than half a decade.

Requiring a high standard of evidence would appear to be impartial. But state media has direct access to evidence for fleshing out the official narrative, even regardless of how real it actually is (eg yellow cake). Meanwhile those pointing out a "crazy conspiracy" are left hoping for leaks.

Previous speculation about USG extraditing Assange was solidly grounded in looking at underlying motivations and capabilities. Claiming that there would be no extradition was essentially implying that Assange couldn't be charged under US law, presumably due to some combination of the first amendment and jurisdictional issues. To anybody that pays attention to how USG actually operates, this was at best naive. Now the reality has finally been demonstrated.

This tendency to malign a non-official narrative as "crazy" for lack of a smoking gun demonstrates exactly why leakers are so vital. The conversation of 2012 would have looked much different if "he's hiding in the embassy simply to escape a rape charge" had been a completely nonsensical position. But as it was, it provided a basis for FUD while the "Assange bad" drums pushed people into thinking that it's right for something bad to happen to him.

He only just now got out of the embassy.

The claim, all along, was that as soon as he is out of the embassy that the US will bring out their espionage charges.

And he just got out of the embassy,and guess what happened? He recieved espionage charges. Exactly as predicted.

The indictment leaked 5 months before Assange was kicked out of the embassy, 8 months after it was created.

It was, of course, the case that it was a sealed indictment and wasn't supposed to be released at all prior to the individual charged being arrested, but that is kind of a normal thing in our legal system; many of the charges against the individuals prosecuted as a result of the Mueller investigation came in the form of sealed charges, as another prominent instance of the practice.

> but that is kind of a normal thing in our legal system

Ok, well if it is normal then nobody should have been calling anyone at all a conspiracy theorist for saying that the US was going to have an extradition request the moment he stepped out of the embassy.

We were right. He stepped outside and now there are charges.

The DoJ at the time explicitly denied Assange being under sealed indictment, which, if he was, it should not have.

(In general, the US government is not supposed to explicitly lie to the American people, hence the "I can neither confirm nor deny" line that comes up when an issue is classified; you can't say P, because you can't reveal classified information, but you also can't say not-P because you aren't allowed to lie in an official capacity.)

No, I think the "crazy conspiracy people" were right all along.

Whether or not they were provably right at the time is not the issue. They were right. They could read between the lines, and they were right.