The leaker who was caught and indicted back in June for lying to the FBI has now pled guilty. He was the one who worked on the Senate Intel Committee and dated a reporter who worked at the NY Times, among other left-wing outlets:
FOX NEWS – A former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee has pleaded guilty to one count of giving a false statement to FBI agents looking into leaks of national security information to several reporters, including one at the New York Times he dated, the Justice Department announced Monday.
James A. Wolfe, 58, was in charge of maintaining all classified information coming from the executive branch to the Senate panel. He served as the panel’s security director for 29 years.
“Did you make a false statement to the FBI?” D.C. district court judge Ketanji B. Jackson asked Wolfe in court on Monday. Wolfe had been scheduled to appear for a routine status hearing, before prosecutors announced that “substantial” negotiations had produced a guilty plea.
“I did, your honor,” Wolfe responded.
Wolfe lied to the FBI in December 2017 about contacts he had with three reporters, according to a statement of offense released Monday as part of his guilty plea. He also allegedly lied about giving two reporters non-public information about committee matters. His guilty plea on Monday to one count means that the other two counts against him will be dismissed.
President Trump this summer said Wolfe’s arrest “could be a terrific thing” and called him a “very important leaker.”
“I’m a big, big believer in freedom of the press,” Trump told reporters. “But I’m also a believer in classified information. It has to remain classified.”
Here’s more on his misdeeds:
Earlier this year, the New York Times revealed that federal investigators had seized years’ worth of email and phone records relating to one of its reporters, Ali Watkins. She previously had a three-year romantic relationship with Wolfe, the Times reported, adding that the records covered a period of time before she joined the paper. Watkins worked previously for BuzzFeed, Politico and McClatchy.
Wolfe’s contacts with Watkins specifically did not appear related to the charge he admitted on Monday to lying about.
Wolfe allegedly exchanged “tens of thousands of electronic communications” with one reporter, including one that read, “”I’ve watched your career take off even before you ever had a career in journalism. . . . I always tried to give you as much information that I could and to do the right thing with it so you could get that scoop before anyone else . . . .”
But Wolfe told FBI agents that “he had never disclosed to REPORTER #2 classified information or information that he learned as Director of Security for the (Committee) that was not otherwise publicly available,” according to Monday’s court documents and his indictment.
Wolfe used several means to contact reporters, including Signal and WhatsApp, according to court papers. He also met “clandestinely in person,” in secluded areas of the Hart Senate Office Building, according to his indictment and statement of offense.
His lawyers maintain that Wolfe hasn’t been charged with leaking confidential information. But I would expect that still coming? Even in this report it notes that he lied about giving “non public” information about the Senate Committee to reporters.
Either way, it’s good another leaker was caught. I hope he serves every one of those five years in prison and pays every penny of that fine.