A new report detailed that CIA officials under the administration of former United States President Donald Trump made plans in 2017 and pitched them to senior officials that they wanted to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The plans were made to secure the individual who was holed up in a London embassy and was discovered after interviews with more than 30 former United States officials. They said that the CIA was infuriated by WikiLeak's 2017 publication of thousands of documents that showed the agency's hacking and covert surveillance techniques, known as the Vault 7 leak.
Plans to Kidnap, Assassinate Assange
The report claims that senior Trump administration officials inquired about "options" for what the federal government could do about Assange after his actions. The list of choices included the feasibility of assassinating or kidnapping the founder.
Then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who later became the secretary of state, prioritized taking revenge on Assange for his publications. The official in 2017 designated WikiLeaks as a "non-state hostile intelligence service." This meant that it could be the target of the nation with the same level of aggression that is used against foreign states' intelligence agencies, Business Insider reported.
Allegedly, there seemed to be "no boundaries" during the discussions about what the Trump administration could do in 2017 in retaliation to Assange's actions, based on statements from a former senior counterintelligence official. A former national security official said that Pompeo and many others were so embarrassed by the Vault 7 leak and were out to hunt for blood.
The CIA's plans included intercepting a Russian effort to extract Assange or a straight-up assassination attempt. While officials never approved any of the options, the idea that they were discussed suggested alarming concerns of the intelligence agency's obsession with WikiLeaks and its founder.
During Trump's presidency, the federal government placed fewer restrictions on the CIA and was less concerned with launching direct operations against Assange. The controversy became much more heated in March 2017 after WikiLeaks' Vault 7 leak, The Verge reported.
Revealing Classified Plans
A former senior counterintelligence official said that when the Republican businessman took his seat as the United States president, there was a "fundamental change." He said that no one in Trump's party was caught up about the First Amendment issues.
Assange's U.S. lawyer, Barry Pollack, expressed his criticism of the recently revealed plans and said that they were completely outrageous. He attacked the federal government, condemning officials for planning to kidnap or assassinate his client for simply publishing truthful information.
The WikiLeaks founder is currently housed inside a London prison while courts discuss a decision amid a U.S. request to extradite him on charges of attempting to help former U.S. Army analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified computer network. Assange was also accused of conspiring to obtain and public classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act.
Pollack added that he wanted the UK courts to consider the information detailed in the new report in making a decision regarding Assange's extradition to the U.S. Some administration officials allegedly quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them of what Pompeo suggested, Yahoo News reported.
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