Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Friday that the Department of Justice plans to crack down on leaks coming from the department and intelligence community.
“I have this message for our friends in the intelligence community. The Department of Justice is open for business and I have, this morning, this warning: Don’t do it,” Sessions said. “For the past several months we have made changes and are seriously ramping up our efforts.”
Sessions also said the department is reviewing its policy on media subpoenas.
“We respect the important role the press plays and will give them respect, but they cannot place lives at risk with impunity,” he said. “We must balance their role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the armed forces and all law-abiding Americans.”
“This nation must end this culture of leaks,” he went on. “We will investigate and seek to bring criminals to justice. We will not allow rogue anonymous sources with security clearances to sell out our country.”
Sessions noted that the department has tripled the number of active leak investigations compared to the number at the end of the last administration.
President Donald Trump has raged against leaks that he says are damaging to him, and publicly complained that Sessions has not been tough enough on leaks.
“I want the attorney general to be much tougher,” Trump said last week. “I want the leaks from intelligence agencies, which are leaking like rarely have they ever leaked before, at a very important level. These are intelligence agencies we cannot have that happen.”
Sessions wants leakers, and he's willing to go through as many press protections as possible in order to get them, but I honestly don't think it will be very long before Sessions starts putting reporters in jail along with career FBI, CIA and NSA folks, who just happen to be to people who are working on the investigations into Trump's dirty laundry.
Then again, he might go after Mueller too. Who knows?
The closer the trap's jaws get to Trump's throat, the more he'll lash out. It's what failing dictators do, folks.
Posts
