{"id":91068,"date":"2017-04-24T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=91068"},"modified":"2017-04-23T15:33:48","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T14:33:48","slug":"julian-assange-strikes-back-at-cia-director-and-talks-trump-russia-and-hillary-clinton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/04\/julian-assange-strikes-back-at-cia-director-and-talks-trump-russia-and-hillary-clinton\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Assange Strikes Back at CIA Director and Talks Trump, Russia, and Hillary Clinton"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo Illustration: Elise Swain for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

19 Apr 2017<\/i> – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is hitting back at Trump\u2019s CIA director Mike Pompeo following a speech<\/a> last week in which Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a \u201chostile nonstate intelligence agency\u201d operating outside of the protections of the First Amendment. \u201cWe can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for,\u201d Pompeo declared<\/a>, adding an ominous assertion: \u201cIt ends now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living since June 2012, Assange said Pompeo appeared to be issuing a threat. \u201cSo how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn\u2019t say. But the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people, and assassinating people. So, it\u2019s quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify,\u201d said Assange.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/FL5660744294.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Listen to the podcast now, or click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Assange made the remarks during an exclusive interview for the Intercepted podcast. \u201cThe reason why Director Pompeo is launching this attack, is because he knows we\u2019re in this series exposing all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA,\u201d Assange said, referring to WikiLeaks ongoing publication of secret CIA hacking documents as part of its \u201cVault 7<\/a>\u201d project. Pompeo, he said, is \u201ctrying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a preemptive defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he watched Pompeo\u2019s speech, Assange said he was struck by what he perceived as a lack of gravitas. \u201cWe thought it was quite a weak speech in that it put Director Pompeo, it put the CIA, in a position where they looked like they were frightened and worried that we were the better intelligence service,\u201d Assange said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0067wS26n_E<\/p>\n

Regarding Pompeo\u2019s declaration that WikiLeaks was not entitled to First Amendment rights, Assange said: \u201cFor the head of the CIA to pronounce what the boundaries are, of reporting or not reporting \u2014 is a very disturbing precedent. The head of the CIA determining who is a publisher, who\u2019s not a publisher, who\u2019s a journalist, who\u2019s not a journalist, is totally out of line.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wide-ranging interview, Assange discussed the allegations that WikiLeaks was abetted by Russian intelligence in its publication of DNC emails, his alleged relationship with Roger Stone and his newfound admirers on the right, from FOX News to Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Assange said that if WikiLeaks had obtained a cache of RNC emails, it would have published those as well. \u201cJust imagine if WikiLeaks had obtained information that it knew was true about the Democratic party and corruption of the primary process, and it decided that it was not going to publish that information, but suppress it \u2014 it would be completely unconscionable,\u201d he said. \u201cWe specialize in really big scoops. You can\u2019t go, \u2018Oh, we have this massive scoop about corruption in the DNC. Now we need to balance this with a massive scoop about corruption in the RNC.\u2019 These things come along once every few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questioned about WikiLeaks\u2019s aggressive targeting of Hillary Clinton, Assange rejected the notion that he went after her for personal reasons. \u201cI\u2019ve never met Hillary Clinton,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I\u2019d probably like her in person. Most good politicians are quite charismatic in person. In some ways she\u2019s a bit like me, She\u2019s a bit wonkish and a bit awkward. So maybe we\u2019d get along.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire conversation with Assange can be heard on the latest episode<\/a> of Intercepted.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Jeremy Scahill<\/a> – jeremy.scahill@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related: Intercepted Podcast: Julian Assange Speaks Out as Trump\u2019s CIA Director Threatens to \u201cEnd\u201d WikiLeaks<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Apr 2017 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is hitting back at Trump\u2019s CIA director Mike Pompeo following a speech last week in which Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a \u201chostile nonstate intelligence agency\u201d operating outside of the protections of the First Amendment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}