Mike Pompeo Quotes

Having watched the form of our traitors for a number of years, I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

This town leaks like a sieve. Sometimes I think that the easiest thing on the world would be to be a spy against the United States of America

I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of [CIA] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

When you're in the CIA, you anticipate the possibility that you'll be betrayed by a foreign government or a source, but you never anticipate that it would be by your own government.

When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.

Every department in Washington…contained numerous traitors and spies.

It's impossible for somebody to defect from the United States. Edward Lee Howard is not a defector. He's a traitor.

There is only one law of espionage—there are always going to be spies.

I do not want to respond to leaks that concern things that have to do with state secrets of the first degree.

Selling your country's secrets is always wrong.

Was the leaker in question, Ed Snowden, was he a traitor?

I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of [CIA] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don't give their secrets to journalists for free.

I've met enough KGB colonels in my life.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

I handed over names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union.

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.

I said in court a long time ago that I didn't see that the Soviet Union was significantly helped by the information I gave them, nor that the United States was significantly harmed.

In general, I do not agree with spying against one's country.

Some say Edward Snowden is a hero and a patriot. Others say he's a fool and a traitor. The evidence is mounting that the guy who leaked the details about the National Security Agency's Internet-eavesdropping program may be something more sinister - namely, a willing tool in China's ongoing cyberwar against our nation.

But the technology was accessible, which suggests incompetence on the part of our counterintelligence community and the Clinton Administration, and may in fact rise to the level of treason.

The NSA's business is 'information dominance,' the use of other people's secrets to shape events.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.