CIA Director Mike Pompeo addressed the torrent of leaks of sensitive information about national security that has dominated headlines over the last few months during an interview with MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt which aired Saturday.
Hewitt asked Pompeo whether he was “looking over [his] back with the other agencies.”
“The leak parade has been extraordinarily long and granular,” said Hewitt, who then asked what was being done to stem the flow.
“I can only say this,” Pompeo began. “We, and I would say all of President Trump’s government, is incredibly focused on both stopping leaks of any kind from any agency, and when they happen, pursuing them with incredible vigor.”
He continued, “and I think we’ll have some successes both on the deterrence side, that is stopping them from happening, as well as on punishing those who we catch who have done it.”
“Soon?” Hewitt asked.
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Pompeo replied.
But despite Pompeo’s insistence that the Trump administration pursued leakers with vigor, the administration has been rocked by a series of blockbuster leaks. Bob Deitz, a former top lawyer for the NSA and CIA, told Business Insider that Trump’s administration is “the leakiest in recent history.”
Some of the leaks include reports that Trump had disclosed top-secret code word information to Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting the day after he fired Former FBI Director James Comey; that Trump may be under FBI investigation for obstruction of justice; and that intelligence officials were aware that former national security adviser Michael Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail as early as January – a month before he was forced to resign from his position. A number of those reports cited current or former intelligence officials as sources.
Comey personally leaked an unclassified memo to the press through a close friend shortly after he was fired. He later described the contents of that memo and others as part of his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month.
Watch the interview below:
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