“In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder ... senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred ‘at the highest levels’ of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official ... The agency’s multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices ... President Trump’s newly installed CIA director, Mike Pompeo, was seeking revenge on WikiLeaks and Assange ... CIA’s fury at WikiLeaks led Pompeo to publicly describe the group in 2017 as a ‘non-state hostile intelligence service.’ More than just a provocative talking point, the designation opened the door for agency operatives to take far more aggressive actions, treating the organization as it does adversary spy services ... This Yahoo News investigation, based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange ... The CIA declined to comment. Pompeo did not respond to requests for comment. ‘As an American citizen, I find it absolutely outrageous that our government would be contemplating kidnapping or assassinating somebody without any judicial process simply because he had published truthful information,’ Barry Pollack, Assange’s U.S. lawyer, told Yahoo News. Assange is now housed in a London prison ... in violation of the Espionage Act ... White House officials briefed Trump”
https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-a...-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html
