Rep. Waltz: Assange and Manning have 'blood on their hands'

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Rep. Michael Waltz on Julian Assange arrest: I hope the Justice Department throws the book at him

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., said on “Your World with Neil Cavuto” Thursday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has 'blood on his hands' and hoped to see him “go to jail for a long time.”

“Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and then related but separate Edward Snowden, they have blood on their hands. And I hope the Justice Department throws the book at him. I am looking forward to seeing (him) extradited back to the United States,” Waltz told Neil Cavuto.

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“And let's just talk for a second about what they did. They took all of our operational files, as a Green Beret in Afghanistan, we were conducting operations night after night after night against the Taliban, Al Qaeda, later on ISIS.  They took all of our operational files and particularly the sources, the local Afghans that were working with us, they did this in Iraq as well and put them all over the Internet.”

Assange was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for his work aiding Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning,  in cracking a password that helped her gain access to classified U.S. government files in 2010, the U.S. Justice Department announced hours after Assange's arrest in London.

Waltz said he would argue that what Assange and Manning did resulted in “deaths on the battlefield” and he would like see them serve a long sentence for their alleged crimes.

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“We know that Al Qaeda had a specific intelligence unit scouring through WikiLeaks and using that or using that information to then target not only American soldiers but the local Afghans the local Iraqis and any other source that we use helping us in the war on terror,” Waltz said.

“So they have blood on their hands. And I hope to see them go to jail for a long time.”

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.