I don't buy that for a second.

Example: Gerhard Schröder was also very obviously bought by Russians. He never went to jail nor was he hunted down.

Assange also did publish actual literal war crimes committed by the US. Not sure how you can just casually ignore that fact?

There's more to this.

This. My hope is he had valuable information to give up about his former operators that was worth the plea deal, which is very possible as he's far from the only one.

Let an old spy go off and retire, he can't work anymore anyhow.