Julian Assange submission, the United States confirmed its "sensitive, ongoing law enforcement proceeding into the Wikileaks matter." On 13 April 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks "a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia." On 20 April 2017, US officials told CNN that they were preparing to file formal charges against Assange. United States prosecutors accidentally revealed the existence of criminal charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in an unrelated ongoing sex crime case in the Eastern District of Virginia. Assange visited Sweden in August 2010. During his visit, he became the subject of sexual assault allegations
Julian Assange serious journalism as we know it." Critics of the lawsuit have pointed to potential damage that it could do to freedom of the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists questioned the legal basis for targeting Assange and compared the suit to attempts to suppress the Pentagon Papers. On 27 November 2018, The Guardian claimed that Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort visited Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2013, 2015 and 2016. It said the last visit in March 2016 could be related to Wikileaks’ publication later in 2016 of DNC documents. It also claimed that in June 2016