Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to announce criminal probes into leaks of sensitive information to the media, White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci confirmed Wednesday.
Speaking on Fox & Friends, he said, “at some point—I don’t know if it will be today, tomorrow, or next week—he will announce that plan.”
An unnamed U.S. official told Fox News that there were several criminal leak investigations underway that had been “in the works for some time” and would most likely be announced “sometime in the next week.”
President Donald Trump has put public pressure on Sessions to crack down on the leaks, which he sees as damaging to the administration and a threat to national security.
Back in May, British authorities expressed anger and frustration when U.S. media published sensitive information on the suicide bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 23 people and injured more than 100. U.S. media released the name of the attacker a day before British authorities, and The New York Times ran photos of the crime scene, including remnants the bomb, which British authorities said hampered the investigation.
Transcripts of phone calls Trump has made to foreign officials have also been leaked to the press, prompting a clampdown on access to sensitive information in the national security and intelligence agencies.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a report earlier this month saying the leaks—which were happening at a rate of about one a day from January to May—were seven times more frequent than under the previous two administrations.
The committee found 125 news reports “with leaked information potentially damaging to national security,” CNN reported.
The committee reportedly sent the report to Sessions in the event that it could be useful to the “relevant investigative entities.”
The Justice Department has already announced charges against one federal contractor who it alleges leaked sensitive information to the media.
Reality Winner, 25, was accused of sending a classified NSA document to news media. The document was a report of an investigation into the hacking of a U.S. voting software supplier. Winner was charged on June 5 with “sending classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet.”
In addition to his confirmation about Sessions’s probe, Scaramucci said he would not hesitate to fire anyone in the press office found leaking information.
“You’re either going to stop leaking or you’re going to get fired,” Scaramucci said on “Fox & Friends.”
From NTD.tv
