Trump hits the intel community for inappropriately leaking to the news media

by The Right Scoop

Trump took to Twitter this morning to voice his displeasure with all the leaking that’s coming from his intelligence agencies and given to the news media:

Yesterday Trump pointed out that these leaks are the real issue and not the hysteria over who said what and when over Flynn:

I think he has a point, and one that the news media isn’t really covering.

Eli Lake explains:

It’s very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S. citizens, let alone senior U.S. officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009 when Jeff Stein, then of CQ, reported on intercepted phone calls between a senior Aipac lobbyist and Jane Harman, who at the time was a Democratic member of Congress.

Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.

In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence reports). John Bolton’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in 2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests when he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in George W. Bush’s first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.

I think the real issue here is not the intel agencies themselves, but the Obama loyalists who are doing the leaking. It’s becoming more and more clear that Trump must clean house and soon or else the news media is going to try and destroy him.

Consider the NY Times article last night on this Russian connection to Trump aides. It is titled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence”. They are basically alleging a conspiracy that Trump is secretly working with Russia.

When I first saw the breaking news on this, I rolled my eyes, knowing this was probably more leaks from Obama’s leaking machine. But Ari Fleischer’s tweet about the news this morning really puts it in perspective:

Indeed, the story states just that:

The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

So if there is no evidence, why is there a story?

As Adam Kredo points out, who broke the Free Beacon story yesterday on the Obama loyalists leaking against Trump:

Sounds like Trump has some work to do. I really hate quoting Lou Dobbs here, but maybe he’s right?

I’m not sure of the best way for Trump to kill the leaks. He could do it the way Obama did it, but I think Buck Sexton is right here:

However he does it, he should do it carefully but swiftly.


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