Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the Trump administration would use "the full force of the law … to hold all of those accountable" in hacking of documents that were released this week by WikiLeaks.
"Trafficking in national security information, as is alleged WikiLeaks has done here, is a very serious offense," Pence told Bret Baier on Fox News. "It represents a compromise of the security of the American people.
"This president and this administration will take that very seriously and use the full force of the law and resources of the United States to hold all of those to account that were involved," he said.
"If proven to be true and confirmed publicly, I can assure you that no resource will be spared in holding those [to] account that have leaked information that could well constitute a compromise of methods and a compromise of national security."
WikiLeaks published nearly 9,000 documents Tuesday purporting to contain details of CIA hacking operations, including claims that the spy agency could record information from Apple, Google and Samsung smartphones and televisions.
Federal officials were investigating the latest dump — and Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had broken the law or might face prosecution.
"Does the Department of Justice believe Julian Assange has broken the law and is the department aggressively pursuing his detention and prosecution?" Sasse asked in a letter to Sessions.
"Frankly, it is amazing that I even have to ask this question of the administration in light of the intelligence community's formal assessment that Mr. Assange's website is a known outlet for foreign propaganda and in light of Mr. Assange's history of recklessly endangering the lives of Americans through his illegal disclosures," he said.
Assange also said Thursday that WikiLeaks would help technology companies find and fix software vulnerabilities in their everyday products.
In an online news conference, he said that some companies had sought out more details about the alleged CIA toolkit that was revealed in the latest document drop.
"We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details we have, so that fixes can be developed and pushed out," Assange said.
The digital blueprints for what he described as "cyberweapons" would be published to the world "once this material is effectively disarmed by us."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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