CIA Director Mike Pompeo condemned WikiLeaks as dangerous to America during comments at the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday.
“WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can,” Pompeo said in a conversation with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.
Asked about comments President Trump made during the presidential campaign, when Trump declared “I love WikiLeaks,” Pompeo said he holds a different view.
“I don’t love WikiLeaks,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo has taken a tougher line on WikiLeaks since becoming CIA director. Earlier this year he referred to WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.” The secrets-leaking website was tied to the Russians by multiple intelligence agencies in a January report.
But in June 2016 during the campaign, when Pompeo was a Republican House lawmaker from Kansas, he tweeted a link to hacked documents obtained by WikiLeaks of emails from the Democratic National Committee.
When Pompeo was asked about the tweet at his confirmation hearing in January, he said he never viewed WikiLeaks as a “credible source of information.”
At the Aspen Security Forum, Pompeo made light of scrutiny he has received for things he said and did during the campaign.
“I keep getting hell for things I said before I was in this job,” Pompeo said. “It’s the darndest thing.”
