After being blasted by new CIA Director Mike Pompeo yesterday as a "hostile non-state intelligence service," Julian Assange has decided to respond by trolling the CIA, the "state non-intelligence agency," over its own roles in producing “al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran and Pinochet.”
"Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency" which produced al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran & Pinochet."
Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency" which produced al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran & Pinochet.
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) April 14, 2017
Assange's Twitter trolling was prompted by Pompeo’s attack on WikiLeaks yesterday which appeared to be in response to an op-ed Assange wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday which referenced President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech, in which he warned of the dangers of the influence of the military industrial complex. Assange said the speech is similar to WikiLeaks’ own mission statement.
On his last night in office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a powerful farewell speech to the nation — words so important that he’d spent a year and a half preparing them. “Ike” famously warned the nation to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Much of Eisenhower’s speech could form part of the mission statement of WikiLeaks today. We publish truths regarding overreaches and abuses conducted in secret by the powerful.
Our most recent disclosures describe the CIA’s multibillion-dollar cyberwarfare program, in which the agency created dangerous cyberweapons, targeted private companies’ consumer products and then lost control of its cyber-arsenal. Our source(s) said they hoped to initiate a principled public debate about the “security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.”
The truths we publish are inconvenient for those who seek to avoid one of the magnificent hallmarks of American life — public debate. Governments assert that WikiLeaks’ reporting harms security. Some claim that publishing facts about military and national security malfeasance is a greater problem than the malfeasance itself. Yet, as Eisenhower emphasized, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
For those who missed it, below is our note on Pompeo's comments from yesterday.
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And so Donald Trump flips on yet another issue.
One day after the President reversed his core stance on a broad range of policies including the US Dollar, interest rates, the futures of Janet Yellen, the Ex-Im bank, the obsolescence of NATO and whether China is a currency manipulator, on Thursday afternoon he took aim at Wikileaks and Julian Assance, when CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, in his first public appearance since taking the top intel post in the Trump administration, called the whistleblower organization a "non-state hostile intelligence service" abetted by state actors like Russia.
"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia" Pompeo said.
"WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Pompeo told an audience at a Washington think tank, adding that Russia's GRU intelligence service had used the anti-secrecy group to distribute hacked material during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo says WikiLeaks has been "abetted by state actors like Russia" https://t.co/N4oFu3tHOo
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 13, 2017
Pompeo took aim at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden during his first major public appearance since leaving Congress to serve in the top intelligence post in Donald Trump’s administration.
He also said that disclosures by Assange and Snowden have done "great harm to our nation’s national security and they will continue to do so in the long term."
And to think that just 6 months ago, Trump, i.e., Mike Pompeo's boss, said he loved Wikileaks...
On Thursday, Pompeo cited the intelligence community’s January report concluding that the GRU, Russia’s foreign military intelligence unit, went through WikiLeaks to released hacked emails from the DNC to influence the presidential election. The report concluded that Russia’s state-controlled media outlet RT actively collaborated with WikiLeaks in the influence campaign against the election.
Pompeo called Assange "a fraud, a coward hiding behind a screen," skewering him for exposing information about democratic governments rather than authoritarian regimes.
Which is ironic for Pompeo to say when just last July, Pompeo was quite keen on using the information disclosed by this "fraud and coward" for his own political purposes, when he was sharing Wikileaks documents on his Congressional Twitter account less than a year ago
Mike Pompeo was sharing Wikileaks documents on his Congressional Twitter account less than a year ago pic.twitter.com/cl5P6vnXSE
— Jessica Schulberg (@jessicaschulb) April 13, 2017
Pompeo also accused Snowden of committing "treason" by leaking top-secret National Security Agency files, adding that his disclosures have made it more difficult for U.S. intelligence agencies to track terrorists and given them tools to hide in "digital forests."
“He was no whistleblower," Pompeo said.
Trump's latest reversal means that any hope Julian Assange may have had of being pardoned despite - at least according to Hillary Clinton and now the CIA - winning the election for Trump, is now officially gone, and should Assange ever be evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, his fate will be anything but pleasant.