1:11 p.m. ET, April 11, 2019
What US senators are saying about Assange's arrest
From CNN's Manu Raju and Veronica Stracqualursi
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham spoke this morning about President Trump repeatedly praising WikiLeaks, saying: "He's not an American citizen so he can’t be a traitor but I have absolutely no use for Julian Assange ... Whatever comes his way he deserves."
Asked again if the President should have praised WikiLeaks, "That’s up to the President."
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Thursday celebrated the arrest of the Wikileaks founder, arguing it's "great for the American people."
"We're going to extradite him. It will be really good to get him back on United States soil. So now he's our property and we can get the facts and truth from him," the West Virginia Democrat told CNN.
Manchin, along with nine of his Democratic colleagues, had signed a letter to Vice President Mike Pence last June, expressing concern about Ecuador providing asylum to Assange since 2012.
"I think it's very good for us to finally get him on US soil so we can investigate. We can basically cross-examine; we can find out the facts that only he knows and his connections and how he basically distributed his information," Manchin said.
Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Republican leadership who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said this when asked about Trump’s repeated praise of WikiLeaks when he was a candidate.
"Well I think anytime people are releasing information that shouldn’t be released that’s a troublesome thing, and I don’t have anything else to say beyond that."