The CIA Allegedly Considered Assassinating This Major Whistleblower

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is at the center of new allegations claiming that the American agency formulated a plot to assassinate a well-known global whistleblower. As reported by Yahoo News, the CIA allegedly conspired to orchestrate an assassination attempt against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. According to the report, in 2017, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo was supposedly at the helm of the plot. The discussions about it are said to have reached very high up amongst other top White House officials in the Trump administration. The reason for the assassination plan is said to be a course of vengeance that Pompeo wanted for Assange leaking classified agency documents on his website.

WikiLeaks is a website that Assange founded in 2006. In 2010, he published a series of documents exposing intricate details of confidential CIA dealings. Since then, Assange has been an enemy of sorts to the U.S. government, and leadership in other countries around the world. Shortly after Assange's whistleblowing website shocked the world, a warrant was issued for his arrest in Sweden. But to avoid extradition, he camped out at the Ecuadorian embassy in London after receiving political asylum and lived there for about seven years. The U.S. would also order his extradition in 2019 to face charges of trying to hack the military system (via The Guardian). He's been fighting extradition to the U.S. since, and now sits in a U.K. prison, per BBC.

So to get payback for Assange's now-infamous leak, this apparent plot was supposed to be the ultimate judgement for him. CIA director Pompeo was one of the leading voices speaking out against Assange, and in 2017 was quoted saying that Assange's website was a threat and would be taken down, per NPR.

But with the recent news, more details have come out, and it wasn't just the website that Pompeo purportedly wanted to take down; Assange was their main target. The CIA plot allegedly planned to kidnap and then assassinate the WikiLeaks founder.

The Yahoo News report states that the 2017 leak of Vault 7, classified CIA hacking tactics (per Search Security), added more to the agency and its director's ire. And when they reportedly learned about the Ecuadorian embassy's plans to sneak Assange from the location to get him to Russia, the alleged assassination attempt was in motion. Despite the shocking report, Yahoo reports that there are no findings of an actual document approving of said plot. But Assange's lawyer believes this latest information strengthens Assange's case against extradition to the U.S.