How Julian Assange, US prosecutors arrived at plea deal to end his case

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is back in Australia as a free man, having resolved through a plea deal a U.S. Justice Department case charging him with obtaining and publishing government secrets on his secret-spilling website.

It was a stunning resolution to a polarizing drama that landed at the intersection of press freedom and national security, spanned three presidential administrations and played out across multiple continents.

Here are some things to know:

The negotiations

The plea deal was the culmination of a lengthy negotiation process that accelerated in recent months and featured numerous proposals and counterproposals.

About a year and a half ago, a lawyer for Assange made a presentation to federal prosecutors in Virginia that included a bold request: that they drop the case.

That was untenable to the Justice Department, but months later prosecutors asked whether Assange would be open to resolving the case through a guilty plea. The Assange team was open to explorin