Fact Check: Did the CIA Want Julian Assange Killed?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released from prison this week after reaching a plea deal with U.S. authorities, following a lengthy legal battle over sensitive defense information that WikiLeaks released publicly.

Assange, who gained international notoriety for publishing classified military and diplomatic documents through WikiLeaks, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, according to papers filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands on Tuesday, seen by Newsweek.

In conversations that followed the news, claims appeared on social media that the CIA had at one point discussed killing Assange.

The Claim

A post shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Wall Street Apes on June 25, 2024—viewed more than 820,000 times—said: "Now That Julian Assange Has Been Freed It's Very Important To Share This Clip Again, Julian Needs To Be Careful.

"Tucker Carlson exposes The CIA was planning on murdering Julian Assange."

The post included a video of Tucker Carlson speaking to Joe Rogan, during which he said, "Yahoo News, Mike Isikoff wrote a long piece on this several years ago. His employees went to Mike Isikoff and said, hey.

"Mike Pompeo was plotting to murder Julian Assange who's never even been charged with a crime in the United States as CIA director. That's illegal. You're not allowed. Federal employees are not allowed to just kill people they don't like. OK."

The Facts

It is true that a report published by Yahoo News in 2021 claimed that, based on the accounts of former unnamed U.S. officials, there had been discussions considering killing Assange, with "senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration" even requesting "sketches" or "options" on how to kill him.

One unnamed foreign senior counterintelligence official told journalists that these discussions had occurred at the "highest levels" of the Trump administration.

These alleged plans came after the publication of CIA hacking tools known as "Vault 7." On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks released 8,000 "Vault 7" documents and files that it claimed were obtained from an "isolated, high-security network" within the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The release alleged that the CIA's Mobile Development Branch produced malware to gain access to devices. It stated: "These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the 'smart' phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied."

Three officials told Yahoo News that, following the leak, there were discussions that considered killing Assange. One official claimed that they were briefed on a spring 2017 meeting in which former President Donald Trump asked whether the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide him "options" for how to do so.

Sources speaking to Yahoo News called the plans "unhinged and ridiculous," and it was unclear how serious they were, one saying, "It was just Trump being Trump." Trump denied the claim.

Yahoo News said it could not confirm whether these proposals made it to the White House, some of its sources saying they had heard of no such discussion. The idea of killing him "didn't get serious traction," according to one CIA former official who said, "It was, this is a crazy thing that wastes our time."

The CIA and Pompeo did not comment on the report at the time. Newsweek has contacted a media representative for the CIA via email for comment.

Assange is expected to be sentenced to the five years he has already spent in a British prison while fighting extradition to the U.S., according to The Associated Press.

U.S. authorities had initially indicted him on 18 espionage charges in 2019. All but one of those charges had a maximum penalty of 10 years.

His wife, Stella Assange, told BBC Radio that her husband will plead guilty to one charge "concerning the Espionage Act and obtaining and disclosing National Defense information."

She confirmed that Assange was on his way to the American island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he will be sentenced at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday. She explained that "there is an agreement in principle between Julian and the Department of Justice and that has to be signed off by a judge," and that it involves "time served."

Assange has already served 62 months in high-security Belmarsh Prison, southeast London, and that is 2 months longer than his expected sentence.

It is expected that Assange will return to his native Australia once he is freed. His wife told the BBC that she and his two young children are waiting for him in Sydney.

The Ruling

Needs Context.

According to the 2021 Yahoo News report, based on testimony from unnamed former U.S. officials, CIA executives requested "sketches" or "options" on how to kill Julian Assange following the leak of "Vault 7" CIA hacking tools.

The report also alleged that then President Donald Trump had asked whether the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide him "'options'" for how to do so.

Trump has denied the claim and neither the CIA nor Mike Pompeo have commented on the story. While discussions were alleged, based on anonymous sources, officials also said the assassination plans did not get "serious traction" and that it was a "crazy thing that wastes our time."

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team