Forgive my ignorance, but how does this favour Trump politically?
No, Assange being paid off by Trump for saying that it's someone other than Russia (which Assange has said, in less specific terms, before, repeatedly, as part of denying that he himself was acting as a witting or unwitting Russian agent and not an independent actor won't embarrass anyone) won't embarrass anyone.
OTOH, the offer (if there's was concrete evidence of it) itself would bolster Assange's claim that this is a political prosecution by the US Administration.
This is in a British court, and the President is not empowered to gag the courts anyway (except sort of I guess, at the highly-constitutionally-questionable national security trials)
Pardon offers are in no way binding or enforceable, so no actual gambling is involved. You just don't follow through unless you get the answer you want, as well as making very clear (such as by spending multiple years building a particular public narrative which the defendant actively participated in around your preferred answer) what the expected answer is so that, regardless of what the true answer is, the defendant knows what answer gets them free of the charges.
In the event that Assange could prove some other actor sourced the emails, that would mean that the FBI, NSA, and CIA were wrong, and the single biggest argument in support of the 'Russia Collision' narrative would go away. Trump would fold this into his narrative that the investigation into Russian collusion was a witch hunt.
Which is just about impossible for him to prove. Does Assange have access to the kind of IT forensics experts, access to the hacked systems and other resources to prove someone else did it? No, he does not. He didn't do the hacking himself. Whoever he did get the leaked info from could of course claim not to be working for the Russians as an intermediary. But that is just a claim, and not proof.
If that sounds like an official act in return for a personal political favor to the president to help his reelection chances and therefore is illegal, you would be correct!
It's unlikely that someone with such an understanding (whether or not it's a correct assumption) would believe that Assange coming forward and saying he was given the emails by Russian assets coordinating with Roger Stone under the direction of Trump would then result in the promised pardon.
Note that, since then, Assange has not come forward with exculpatory evidence for Trump and the administration has begun prosecuting Assange.
Also, being able to pardon Assange would also be his version of the Obama->Manning moment: viciously prosecutor a whistle blower and then symbolically free said whistle blower to make yourself look like the hero.
Even though the Russia narrative has pretty much been shown to be a pile of rubbish, a lot of Americans still don't believe it. Having Assange say it would reinforce that reality.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-rus...
Here's a summary of some of the key findings [2]. Among other things, the head of the Trump campaign was sharing confidential campaign information with an individual that the new GOP report identifies as a "Russian intelligence officer". It's all around pretty shocking stuff, if we lived in a world where people could be shocked anymore.
> Kilimnik was also the “primary liaison” between Manafort and one of his clients, sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to the Senate report, which also alleges that Manafort “worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.”
> The GOP-led committee said it “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” a reference to the Russian cyberattacks that targeted the DNC in the run-up to the election.
> Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, hinted that senators have additional information, including “evidence connecting Kilimnik to the GRU's hack-and-leak operations,” but those elements are redacted.
[1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/rubio-statement-se... [2] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/512613-five-tak...
Additionally, CrowdStrike admitted in sworn testimony that it didn't have any concrete proof. That their findings were based on appearances and estimations and assumptions.
Yes, because the only source of intelligence on an operation is the crime scene itself. Clearly this is bogus and so is the insinuation that there is no other sources of intelligence on Russian operations than evidence from the hacked server.
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
A lot of people are still salty that Assange did journalism that exposed Hillary Clinton's wrongdoing, even people who idolized him until 2016 for his excellent work on America's foreign conflicts, so it's really hard to navigate this labyrinth and get away with doing the right thing.