Leaks

Yesterday evening, it was announced that Attorney General Eric Holder appointed two prosecutors to investigate alleged national security leaks to the media from the White House. But now two leading Senate Republicans are urging President Obama to appoint independent "outside special counsel" to investigate leaks, instead.

President Obama at a press conference this morning insisted that high-level national security leaks are not coming from the White House. "The notion that my White House would purposefully release classified information is offensive," President Obama said. 

But a Republican memo from the Senate Republican Policy Committee maintains that either the president or the New York Times is wrong.

Texas senator John Cornyn is targeting classified leaks being released by the Obama administration. "The leaks appear to have formed the basis of two New York Times reports about the White House’s role in classified national security efforts, one detailing the use of cyber warfare against Iran, and the other the use of drones to hunt and kill suspected terrorists," Cornyn's office says.

Senators Dan Coats, Richard Burr, and Marco Rubio urge the Obama administration to stop leaking sensitive intelligence information to the press: 

It will take some time to comb through the massive document dump that WikiLeaks unleashed last night.

Congress is coming close to passing a shield law that would exempt journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources when called to testify before grand juries in cases involving leaks of classified information.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LAWYER John Dion has worked on every major national security case of the past quarter-century, including the prosecutions of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen. Since 1997, he has run the counterespionage section within the Criminal Division. About once a week, the CIA advises his office of another case involving the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.