IANAIL, but my impression is that’s because the Ecuadorians haven’t offered him a flight home; if they wanted to, it would be illegal for the Brits to try to intercept them on the way to the airport.
No, he’s not a diplomat, accredited to the UK. He’s just an Ecuadorian citizen, with a British warrant out for his arrest. He doesn’t have any diplomatic immunity.
That’s not the key difference. The key difference is that neither Theresa May nor Queen Elizabeth II are Ecuadorian agents. At this point IMHO it is a lot more likely than not that Donald Trump is a Russian agent. If Putin requested that Trump help her out and get her home safely, Trump would do it.
All I know about this point of law is what I read in the Butina indictment:
As soon as she enters the Embassy, she’s left the jurisdiction of the United States. She could stay in the Russian Embassy indefinitely, maybe Skypeing Julian for tips, and can’t be brought to trial.
But when she steps outside, she’s back in the US jurisdiction.
Or even a Russian diplomatic vehicle (cite). So if she posts bail, a Russian embassy staff can pick her up in their car and take her straight to the airport and on to Russia.
Well, it makes sense that that’s how it would work. It seems odd that it would be impermissible for US law enforcement to ticket diplomatic vehicles for traffic offenses, but perfectly OK for them to pull one over and drag someone out kicking and screaming.
Sure, but that just puts it off to the airport. The US still has control over exiting the US, and diplomats have to show their diplomatic passports to leave. Having a mobile diplomatic vehicle makes it more difficult (what if they pull out in secret from the Embassy at 3 am and go to a small airport?), but it’s not a black and white situation, where the US loses all jurisdiction forever as soon as she steps in the Embassy.
Diplomatic credentials are an exception to the normal law, and have clear limits.
Well, I don’t know anything about this, so I guess I’ll stop debating. But the court filing clearly says that if she got to the Embassy, she could leave the US without a passport. Do you think that it means that, although it would be illegal for her to do so, it would be practically difficult for the US to prevent?
That’s my supposition. I would wager that the Russians have some experience in smuggling items (and people) into and out of the U.S., and other countries. I think that the filing is suggesting that, if Butina were to make it onto Russian embassy grounds, that it would be a safe assumption that she would be able to flee, whether or not such flight would be legal.
For that matter, I would not be at all surprised to learn that the CIA is similarly experienced in moving things in and out of Russia. 
Practically difficult, I would say, but not necessarily legal. Which is a real concern, when you’ve got a powerful country with Russia, with a lot more resources than, say, Ecuador, and which doesn’t have a strong need to maintain good relations with the host country. Again, Ecuador and Britain come to mind: it’s not in Ecuador’s national interest to make a big row with Britain over diplomatic status and embassies, to protect Assange.
Russia could well say it’s in their national interest to spirit her out of the US. But that doesn’t solve the legal issues.
She’s not a diplomat, because Russia can’t unilaterally make her a diplomat. A foreign country has to present the person’s credentials to the host country, which has to agree to that person coming on diplomatic status, precisely because that gives that person immunity from the host country’s laws.
Agreed. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that both Russia and the US have diplomatic vehicles that have hidden, human sized trunks built into them that cannot normally be detected and just happen to have an air supply.
The use of the word “exfiltrate” in the passage from the US submission is interesting.
If we said that a foreign nation was sending its people to “infiltrate” the US, that wouldn’t suggest a completely up-and-up process. “Exfiltrate” strikes me as having a similar air of illegitimacy. It might be done, but that doesn’t make it legal.
According to a prosecutor (quoted here), “If the government of Russia chooses to give her the help, it can legally get her a new passport. It can legally get her out of the country.”
I just looked up Jessie Liu to read about this opinion. I had no idea that law enforcement would not be allowed to prevent her from even going to the embassy.
Thread hijack.
As a side note, I guess that Jessie Liu is probably now the most famous person from my hometown. I don’t know if she actually grew up in Kingsville, but she’s only 3 years older than me and I don’t remember her attending the same high school that I did.
Thread hijack over.
I’d be really curious to know how.
How does Russia legally control exit from the United States?
How does Russia legally override a pending criminal charge and a court order from a US Federal court that the accused remain in the United States?
How has the United States ceded that sovereignty to Russia?
No to the pardon question but I would be very nervous if I were Edward Snowden.
You think Snowden is the only person Russia has which the US wants?
I’m not sure it would be legal so much as impracticable to stop. I think the government is worried that she’d be smuggled out in diplomatic luggage or something like that.
Why should she not be flown to Vienna and traded like everyone else?