Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange told the press the U.S. government’s highest intelligence agency used various tools at its disposal to surveil and harass him and his family amid his fight against espionage charges.
“CIA Director [Mike] Pompeo launched a campaign of retribution,” Assange told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
Julian Assange outs Mike Pompeo and the CIA. This is huge. pic.twitter.com/JWjZ0wb5zc
— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) October 1, 2024
Describing the Trump-era CIA chief and Attorney General Bill Barr as “two wolves in MAGA hats,” Assange detailed the extreme lengths the CIA and Justice Department went to try and eliminate him.
“It is now a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction, the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks and the planting of false information.”
Assange recalled his family, including his wife of two years and infant son, weren’t spared from the harassment.
“My wife and my infant son were also targeted,” he said.
“A CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife, and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six-month-old son’s nappy.”
“This is the testimony of more than 30 current and former US intelligence officials speaking to the US press, which has been additionally corroborated by records seized in a prosecution bought against some of the CIA agents involved,” Assange said, leaving no doubt about the authenticity of his claims.
“The CIA’s targeting of myself, my family and my associates through aggressive extrajudicial and extraterritorial means provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression.”
“Such repressions are not unique. What is unique is that we know so much about this one due to numerous whistleblowers and to judicial investigations in Spain.”
Assange went on to advocate for press freedom and urged European lawmakers to pass laws protecting journalists.
The Wikileaks founder’s message comes after he pled guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act and was sentenced in a U.S. court to time served, allowing him to return to Australia as a free man and effectively concluding his 14-year legal ordeal.
Watch Assange’s full statement: