Except for the fact that the lawyer above is correct in their interpretation of the law, and you are wrong. You don’t get to decide that laws you disagree with are ‘pet’, ‘novel’ and go against ‘settled’ law. You’re trying to couch your opinion in certainty that it doesn’t deserve - again, because your interpretation of the law is wrong. You should even have a clue that the DoJ understands this difference, because they specifically allege that Assange helping Manning steal further documents constituted ‘solicitation’. Another clue should be the fact that the articles criticizing this charge, and original Obama era decision not to prosecute the violation, are based on the ‘chilling effect’ that it causes, not that no ‘solicitation’ occurred.
If you’re still confused, here’s a short clip from the aforementioned show discussing that it’s wrong with soliciting sources to steal: https://youtu.be/VSPhYdxSTRI
Their statement that American free-speech jurisprudence doesn't apply to non-journalists is a dead giveaway that they're speaking nonsense.
Maybe you're impressed when the Trump administration's DOJ comes up with a novel legal theory to prosecute a journalist for "solicitation." I'm going to rely on Hugo Black's opinion of this sort of attempt to intimidate journalists and crack down on national security reporting - that it is a fundamental threat to democracy and contravenes the First Amendment. You can trust Trump's cronies over at the DOJ if you'd like.
If you’re still confused, here’s a short clip from the aforementioned show discussing that it’s wrong with soliciting sources to steal: https://youtu.be/VSPhYdxSTRI