Did The CIA Really Try To Kill Julian Assange?

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency allegedly discussed kidnapping or assassinating controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017, according to a new investigation by Yahoo News.

What Happened? On Monday, Yahoo News reported that interviews with more than 30 anonymous former U.S. government officials suggest the CIA and former Director Mike Pompeo were “so embarrassed” by WikiLeak’s Vault 7 leak of thousands of classified government documents that they were “seeing blood.”

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Why It’s Important: Assange leaked documents revealing details of CIA surveillance, hacking and other covert activities the whistleblower claims are evidence of government crimes.

On Wednesday, Pompeo called for criminal prosecution for the sources of the Yahoo News story in an appearance on Megyn Kelly’s podcast.

“I can’t say much about this other than whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke to one of these [Yahoo News] reporters — they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency,” Pompeo said.

When asked about the story’s claims of assasination plans, Pompeo conceded that “pieces of it are ture” but declined to comment on specific details.

Benzinga’s Take: Critics of Assange, Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers call them traitors for leaking classified documents that could put the lives of U.S. citizens and CIA agents at risk.

Supporters point out that whistleblowers are the only way for Americans to expose government corruption and lawbreaking that would otherwise remain hidden due to its classified status.

It’s understandable why some Americans jump to defend whistleblowers like Assange given a recent Pew survey found only 22% of Americans trust the government to do what is right “most of the time,” while just 2% trust the government to do the right thing “just about always.”

Julian Assange. Photo by Snapperjack via Wikimedia.