When you wake to the news that federal parliamentarians will be travelling to Washington DC to plead for the release of Julian Assange, now in his fourth year in London’s Belmarsh Prison, you can only shake your head and pour more coffee.

Assange, you may remember, faces 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act and one of alleged computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified diplomatic and military documents more than a decade ago. Hauled out of the Ecuadorian embassy (they finally got tired of his claim for diplomatic sanctuary and use of embassy resources) he’s been in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison for over four years. Labor Ministers Penny Wong and Richard Marles, Foreign Affairs and Defence respectively, tried to sweet talk US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to order Assange’s release. Blinken gave a very curt and definite ‘no’, alleging Assange was guilty of ‘very serious criminal conduct’ over a trove of US classified documents in a WikiLeaks publication.

Now six federal parliamentarians are travelling to the US to lobby for his release and possible return to Australia. And, this writer will bet money, that they have a snowflake’s chance in hell…

Still, former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Independent Monique Ryan, Labor MP Tony Zappia, Liberal Senator Alex Antic, and Greens Senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson will give DC a whirl, after all, it’s only taxpayers footing the bill and what’s another night or week in a car for a homeless mother and her kid when you can come home and tell your electorate, ‘Well, we did try.’

What this group doesn’t realise, as they blunder around the maze of corridors and committees of America’s national capital, is that Assange is considered by those they intend to persuade to be not just a traitor to the West who put the lives of hundreds of people who worked undercover in some of those most dangerous places on Earth at risk, but an embarrassment to the British who would love to hand him over to the US and get him off their hands. With an election on the horizon and things looking bleak for the Tories, they don’t feel they can, not just yet.

Blinken told reporters he understood Australian concerns. ‘[But] I think it’s very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter. Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country.’

He was right to be uncompromising. Australia has never had to deal outright with Kim Philby, Donald MacLean, or Guy Burgess. God knows how we’d handle it, but I’d guess we’d ask for advice from, you guessed, the US or UK.

Our jolly junketeers will be given a smiling, amiable welcome to Washington and briskly walked through the corridors of power no doubt with, to sweeten their stay, a lunch at a DC restaurant (there’s not a lot of choice, eating in Sydney is more pleasurable, if you’re into food), or a working lunch at our embassy on Massachusetts Avenue hosted by His Excellency ambassador Kevin Rudd. It was JFK who said Washington DC was a city of ‘Southern efficiency, Northern charm’. Under Joe Biden, it probably still is.

Prime Minister Albanese is supposed to be travelling to DC himself later this year. Perhaps the reception the six receive will provide clues as to how warily he should tread in broaching the subject of release for the man the US establishment is unwilling to forgive.

I’m betting Mr Assange will continue to reside in Belmarsh for the foreseeable future but our six jolly junketeers will fly home telling each other and anyone else who will listen, that they really, really tried.