WikiLeaks "walks like a hostile intelligence service, and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Pompeo said. "It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at the CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information."
"It's time to call WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often embedded with state actors like Russia."
The CIA director went on to claim that the RT TV channel "has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks," without presenting any evidence to support his assertion. Earlier this year, the US intelligence community was embarrassed after a widely publicized report presented as evidence of 'Russian propaganda' hacking the 2016 US election in reality turned to be patched together with data from almost five years ago, on the eve of the 2012 election, which Barack Obama won in a landslide.
Pompeo called public celebration of WikiLeaks "perplexing." He paired Assange with German Nazis, stating that Assange would have found himself on the "wrong side of history" in the 1930s and 40s. "Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today," Pompeo said.
What is somewhat ironic is that as a candidate, now-US President Donald Trump said "I love WikiLeaks" at rallies.
Even more embarrassing, though, is that then-Representative Pompeo himself actively promoted WikiLeaks releases on his Congressional Twitter account just last year.
— Jessica Schulberg (@jessicaschulb) April 13, 2017
Pompeo later indulged in a few ad hominem attacks on Assange, calling him a "fraud," "coward," and "narcissist."
WikiLeaks has also picked up on the fact that the sitting CIA director previously cited WikiLeaks.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 13, 2017
The former Kansas congressman renewed the intelligence community's attacks on Edward Snowden. "When Snowden absconded to the comfortable clutches of Russian intelligence, his treachery directly harmed a wide range of US intelligence and military operations," Pompeo noted. The "damage" from revealing the truth about some of the NSA's operations, as Snowden did, is "tangible," Pompeo alleged.
"True whistleblowers," he says, used "established" channels for oversight measures, something Snowden has said he tried to do, but was rebuffed.
