Pompeo’s point that U.S. law prohibits carrying out assassinations is not convincing considering how the Trump administration openly assassinated Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike last year, writes Caity Johnstone.
Mike Pompeo as CIA director calling WikiLeaks a nonstate hostile actor. (Screenshot)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
In the process of issuing another not-really-a-denial about a Yahoo News report that the CIA plotted to kidnap, extradite and assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017, former CIA director Mike Pompeo said that the 30 former government officials the report was based on “should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Here are some quotes from the exchange on Pompeo’s recent Megyn Kelly Show appearance courtesy of Mediaite:
Kelly asked Pompeo about the claims.
“Makes for pretty good fiction, Megyn,” said Pompeo. “They should write such a novel.”
He added, “Whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke with one of these reporters, they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Pompeo called Wikileaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that is “actively seeking to steal American classified information.”
“You deny the report?” asked Kelly.
“There’s pieces of it that are true,” said Pompeo. “We tried to protect American information from Julian Assange and Wikileaks, absolutely, yes. Did our justice department believe they had a valid claim which would’ve resulted in the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States to stand trial? Yes. I supported that effort for sure. Did we ever engage in activity that was inconsistent with U.S. law?… We’re not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations. We never acted in a way that was inconsistent with that.”
Fmr. CIA Director Mike Pompeo calls for mass prosecutions of sources who spoke to Yahoo! News reporters about plans to kidnap or kill Assange.
"Whoever those 30 people [are] who allegedly spoke with one of these reporters, they should all be prosecuted"https://t.co/UWNgmFAvUX
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) September 29, 2021
Pompeo’s point that “We’re not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations” is not especially convincing considering how the Trump administration openly assassinated Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike last year, a move which Pompeo supported and defended.
“President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence, real deterrence, against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo gushed in support of the assassination at the time.
Pompeo’s pseudo-denial is of course further undermined by his position that the former officials who spoke to the press should all be prosecuted for “speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.” Is it false or is it “classified activity”? It can’t be both. The two things Pompeo admitted to, trying to “protect American information” and working to extradite Assange, are not classified information. The classified information he wants them prosecuted for is therefore something else.
After a lot of flailing and humming and hawing Pompeo does eventually make what sounds like a concrete denial with the curiously-worded phrase “I can say we never conducted planning to violate U.S. law.” But even this wouldn’t be a denial of the claims in the Yahoo News report, because the report is mostly about the intelligence community and the Trump administration trying to find legal loopholes that would allow them to take out Assange.
For example, this quote from the Yahoo News article: “A primary question for U.S. officials was whether any CIA plan to kidnap or potentially kill Assange was legal.” This would in no way be contradicted by Pompeo’s claim that “we never conducted planning to violate U.S. law.” It would mean that there were discussions and plans about assassinating Assange amid conversations and debates about whether it would be legal to do so. The fact that they didn’t plan to violate U.S. law doesn’t mean they didn’t plan to assassinate Assange if they could find a legal loophole for it.
There's no actual denial here. https://t.co/Drj417XJfd
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) September 28, 2021
This follows an earlier non-denial by Pompeo of the exact same nature in an interview with conservative pundit Glenn Beck. Pompeo points out that one of the article’s authors was a Russiagater and says of the former officials cited in the report that “those sources didn’t know what we were doing.” But he doesn’t actually deny it.
If Pompeo had not been involved in plots to kidnap, rendition and assassinate Julian Assange, he would have just said so. He wouldn’t have engaged in all kinds of verbal gymnastics to squirm his way out of a difficult question, and he certainly wouldn’t be calling for the criminal prosecution of his accusers for “speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Mike Pompeo is a literal psychopath. He chuckles about lying, cheating and stealing with the CIA. He defends murderous sanctions and openly admits to using them to foment civil war in empire-targeted nations. He defends assassination. He strongly implied the U.S. would interfere in UK politics if Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister. And yet somehow he escaped the Trump administration the mass media so despised with nary a scratch of media criticism on him.
This is because Mike Pompeo, as full of centipedes and demon spawn as his enormous head may be, is highly representative of the mainstream U.S. power establishment. He is the embodiment of the empire’s values. He’s just one of its less-subtle representatives.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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And Mike Pompeo is a Christian, a fundamentalist Christian. So much for this idea that being a Christian makes one a good or better person.
Jesus had some words which would especially apply to somebody like Mike Pompeo: “It must needs be that trials and tribulations will come, but woe to those by whom they come. It would be better for such to have a millstone wrung around their neck and be thrown into the sea …” (Luke 17:1-2).
And Mike Pompeo believes this juvenile nonsense about the so-called “Rapture”. This idea of the Rapture has always seemed to me to be very juvenile and adolescent and sophomoric in its appeal, and not appealing at all to anything noble or ennobling. Have God’s plan for the future figured out, and be one of a select group of people to be raptured away and escape the supposed “Great Tribulation” which the rest of the world will have to suffer.
I have my own reasons for not being a Christian; however if somebody like Mike Pompeo is a Christian I am glad to not be one.
I love Pompeo’s definition of a journalist who investigates and exposes lies and propaganda:
“non-state hostile intelligence service”
We all might be better off ignoring these liars like DOJ does!
Friggin’ sickening.
How does this get turned around? Well, you know what they say about about making mayonnaise. If you want to do it you will ave to break a few heads, um, I mean eggs.
Look folks, like it or not, a popular sentiment or not, to change these things we discuss here is not going to be pretty, let alone without great difficulty The whole sale change in D.C. has culminated at this point in a government interested mostly in empowering itself by positioning itself to endure even against the will of it’s subjects..
One that sees it must now protect itself from those it was intended to serve if they intend to stop the governments self perpetuation at all costs. No dog damit I ain’t talking treason or sedition, I’m talking about the reality of getting control of our government, which in case you have been in outer space for the last sixty or so years, has came off the rails.
It appears that those we elect have the utmost desire to facilitate that process those not giving one dogdamn about our youth who have little choice if they intend to survive themselves but fight it. Mainly because far too many of means choose to remain in their comfort zone. Especially shameful are those who are the nations brightest and most successful elected leaders.
Having my mind in these places is very tiring, I don’t know about anyone else but for today I’ve had enough.
Thanks CN
The tax man is a bad who take your money under the treat of imprisonment and who is currently spending that money to pursue his agenda not yours!!
Let none of us forget what we are currently experiencing is taxation without representation. Remember where we have heard that before.
I feel better now.
Tanks CN
Un des personnages les plus infâme et les plus abject de la meute d’Uru Kaïs et d’Orques du Nazgul de Washington.
Come on, Pompeo, the CIA has murdered lots of people. Why not Assange? The story is perfectly plausible. Your threats of prosecution to the tale-tellers only makes it more plausible.
As usual, bravo, Caitlin. Well said.
I cannot see that it matters now that Julian is unlikely ever to emerge from UK?US “justice”.
The UK seems to consider that keeping a person in prison for the whole of his/her life is unusual and just sentenced a policeman who kidnapped, raped and murdered a young woman in London to this punishment. Julian will certainly not serve “175 years” if he is extradited to the vicious US system, but to treat him as if he is never to be released, worse than the most extreme murderers in the UK, shows that the UK is following the lead of the USA, no matter what Pompeo or Yahoo says.
Mass prosecutions. Mass murder. Who’s counting? Who cares? Who’s presiding over this Mass anyway?
Ozymandias-head speaketh as rule of law crumbles. Doesn’t realize his bombastic visage is planted face-down in rubble, words full of dust & trouble. Rule of mouth! Judge, jury, executioner. Denier of the innocent until proven guilty.
Bring me the drone lists! More lawyer lackeys to abrogate rights and indemnify wrongs! I shall have my Awlaki way, even unto the undoing of due process and end-of-democracy days! Under a GWOT regime my word is king of kings!
Oh, gaze upon this colossal wreck and despair, ye feckless deniers, should you choose to resurrect this decrepit monument to abject liars. If not for yourself then at east for your children who would see through this mighty head-of-bullshit and so be in danger of being trampled in its rage by a flag-pinned plague.
When will this frigging hypocrisy end? When? And how many others has the US government (past and present) assassinated?
Let’s hope that those centipedes and spawn demons will devour Pompeo from the inside out – and SOON!
Susan are sure that hasn’t already happened? I mean we are discussing a most vile, pugnacious being who seems to be unrecognizable as a truly viable human.
Thanks CN