In the last administration, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided against pursuing prosecution of Assange out of concern that WikiLeaks’ argument that it is a journalistic organization would raise thorny First Amendment issues and set an unwelcome precedent.

The Trump administration, however, revisited the question of prosecuting members of WikiLeaks, and last November a court filing error revealed that Assange had been charged under seal.

Conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act are among the possible charges.

Some federal prosecutors say a case can be made that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic organization. As if to lay the groundwork for such an argument, in April 2017, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, characterized WikiLeaks as a “nonstate hostile intelligence service” and a threat to U.S. national security.

The Justice Department has apparently prepared to indict Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, setting up a legal battle that could have broad ramifications for the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as the government’s prosecution of journalists and others who publicize national security secrets.

The revelation was an accident. Prosecutors pursuing an unrelated sex crimes case, against a man named Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, referenced Assange twice in a filing seeking to keep the complaint against Kokayi under seal.

The complaint, prosecutors wrote in the document, “would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.” At a separate point in the document, prosecutors wrote that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.”

President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years, was on Thursday overthrown in a coup by the armed forces which announced a two-year period of military rule to be followed by elections.