Mike Pompeo Served With Lawsuit While Filming Green Screen Video

A video appearing to show former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit has gone viral on social media.

The lawsuit was brought by a group of American lawyers and journalists who have alleged that the CIA, while Pompeo was director of the agency, spied on them during meetings with Wikileaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange while he was sheltering at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in an effort to avoid extradition to the U.S.

The Wikileaks Twitter page shared the video on Wednesday and the clip has so far been viewed over 500,000 times.

"'Michael Richard Pompeo: You've been served!," the caption from Wikileaks read.

"Mike Pompeo has been served with a lawsuit brought by U.S. lawyers and journalists who visited [Julian] Assange," it continued.

"Spanish court documents show violations of their U.S. constitutional rights. The plaintiffs are represented by New York attorney Richard Roth.

Other twitter pages have also shared the video, including that of commentator Ron Filipkowski, where it has been viewed another 100,000 times.

According to a report from the Russian state publication RT, Pompeo was given the legal papers last week at a fundraising dinner. Newsweek has not been able to independently verify this.

In the clip, a man in a blue suit can be seen walking up to Pompeo, who is smiling before they shake hands.

Pompeo is standing in front of a green screen and is handed papers by the man in the blue suit. Pompeo then proceeded to hand the papers, without reading them to an assistant standing nearby.

Newsweek previously reported that in August, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of four Americans who visited Assange and they were seeking damages personally from the then-CIA Director Pompeo.

The plaintiffs, which included two New York attorneys and two American journalists alleged that the private data from their phones and other devices had been copied, violating constitutional protections.

The suit also seeks damages against a Spanish security firm contracted to protect the embassy, and its CEO, alleging that they abused their position to illegally spy on visitors and passed on the surveillance data they collected to the CIA, which is also named as a defendant in the suit.

Legal experts, including a former senior intelligence official, previously told Newsweek that the allegations in the lawsuit, if proven, show the CIA crossed lines drawn to protect American citizens from surveillance by overzealous intelligence agencies.

Assange, an Australian who had repeatedly published classified U.S. documents, was "a legitimate foreign intelligence target," said Tim Edgar, a professor at Brown University and formerly the deputy privacy and civil liberties officer for the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson spoke to Newsweek and reflected on the alleged overall mistreatment of Assange.

"How can Julian Assange possibly expect to receive a fair trial if he is extradited to the United States, a country which has spied on all of his privileged legal communications while he was arbitrarily detained?

"The lengths that one of the most powerful governments in the world would go to in order to persecute and prosecute a journalist are staggering, and they should worry anyone who enjoys a free press anywhere in the world."

Newsweek has reached out to the CIA for comment.