Sputnik: The CIA's Plan to Assassinate Assange

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A US plan to firefight in Britain aimed at stopping an alleged Russian plan to bust out Julian Assange was stopped for several reasons, one being the US' fear of bringing trouble to themselves, wrote Sputnik. 

The US authorities were never fond of the WikiLeaks co-founder, and Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel were "not fans", taking things to another level, which included an assassination plot, claims a group of Yahoo news investigators. 

In 2017, Pompeo and Haspel reportedly explored various ways to carry out a "rendition" to capture Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London then transport him to a third country, which would eventually hand him over to the US.

The CIA's reported plans were pushed forward after the American intelligence community was informed of a Russian alleged plan to bust Assange out of the UK. 

In response, the US spy agency started planning ways to intercept the whistleblower, which included crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle carrying the man, shooting out the tires of a Russian plane with the journalist on board, or outright starting a gunfight on London's streets with Kremlin operatives, the Yahoo investigator team claimed. 

The US authorities were so desperate for the Russians not to put their hands on Assange that they were willing to assassinate him. 

The CIA's plans didn't go through because of several reasons, including American officials who strongly objected to the assassination plan, precisely officials in the National Security Council. 

That said, one intelligence official described the plan as "ridiculous," adding that "this isn't Pakistan or Egypt – we're talking about London."

The Trump administration was reportedly worried that in the event of a failure, the case against Assange could be jeopardized.