No, it's just working hard to legally justify what is basically doing a political favor to the current US administration. Or at least working hard at being seen going through the motions of doing so. Appearances can be deceiving. Both Trump and Johnson basically inherited this mess from several predecessors before them. They might be getting ready to move on and they are both opportunists.

The only risk for British politicians is getting caught with their pants down messing this up (either way). A judge basically needs to sign off on the obvious political desire to please the Trump administration with this. For that to happen, there's a bunch of legal boxes to be ticked and the whole thing plays out in public, which is ever so embarrassing when there are some obvious moral and legal challenges to be made. Hence the glee in this article and the drama with lawyers and prosecutors having their day in court. This thing is obviously toxic at this point. But regardless, the legal precedent is such that they can probably make this happen provided the political will is there.

So, the only question is whether that political will is still real.

As of November, the political landscape in the US may change and I fully expect the legal proceedings to drag out at least that long thus providing both parties a way to get out of what will no doubt be a PR mess on both sides if it actually ever comes to an extradition. That basically largely just hangs on whether Trump is still there or not.

If Trump wins, the PR mess is just business as usual on the US side and it will barely register against the near constant state of media outrage. On the British side, they get some kudos for being nice which will no doubt help with their post-brexit trade negotiations.

If on the other hand Biden wins, I expect he'll be interested in repairing the damage of the past few years in terms of foreign relations and not getting associated with this stinking mess he just inherited and appeasing relations with the more liberal factions in his party.

Likewise, Trump might actually be wanting to pick his fights carefully if he should win. He already casually hinted at dropping the whole thing once or twice and it wouldn't surprise me if he opts for dropping this right after the election regardless of whether he wins them because after that it no longer serves him any political purpose whereas dropping this in some grand way would make him seem like a wise stateman. Win or lose, he'd have more to gain from shooting for that than some dragged out drama for the next years.

The easiest way to do that would basically be the US giving up on extradition after which the UK can grudgingly release Assange without further loss of face and put him on a plane to wherever. End of story. Assange on trial in the US is not a good outcome for anyone at this point.