CIA Director Pompeo Calls WikiLeaks 'Hostile Intelligence Service'

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter

WASHINGTON D.C. (CBSMiami) -- President Trump's CIA Director is calling WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service."  Director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of working with Russia to leak stolen information from Hillary Clinton campaign officials.

"Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom," said Pompeo in his first public remarks as CIA Director and he came out swinging at WikiLeaks and Assange.

"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is - a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia."

Pompeo did not hold back, accusing the organization of working directly with Russian intelligence to release emails stolen from the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign.

"Our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence, the GRU, had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee."

During a rare public appearance last month, Assange announced the release of thousands of sensitive CIA documents.

"The Central Intelligence Agency lost control of its entire cyber weapons arsenal," said Julian Assange.

The illusive Assange insisted his document dumps are not biased towards any country, including Russia.

"On Russia and China we have published hundreds of thousands of things, most of them are critical," stated Assange.

While campaigning, then candidate Trump was publically a fan of WikiLeaks because many of the disclosures hurt his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The White House was briefed on Pompeo's speech in advance.

He said the U.S. would go after non-state actors like WikiLeaks more aggressively than it has before, though he acknowledged it isn't easy to take down foreign operators relying on a shadowy web of sophisticated hackers.