Leaks

The "deep state" is among the four constituencies who are dedicated to thwart the Trump administration in everything it attempts to accomplish. Many unelected, full-time bureaucrats and workers throughout the government are rabidly anti-Trump. They worry that his "Drain the Swamp" rhetoric will threaten their positions and power, so they have an affinity to the Democrats and their love of big government.

The weapon of the deep state is the leak—the illegal or unethical release of sensitive (and sometimes secret) information with the intent of embarrassing the current administration. The trained hamsters in the main stream media encourage the leaks, suggesting that by publishing them, they do a service to the American people. The fact they are yet another member of the four constituencies makes that claim just a little suspect.

Kim Strassel writes about the media's obsession with leaks along with special counsel Robert Meuller far-less-that-bi-partisan "investigation":

Today’s Washington is overrun by two kinds of crimes.

The first is the still-speculative kind, which the Washington press corps obsesses over— Trump -Russia collusion, obstruction of justice—despite no evidence of its existence. By all accounts, special counsel Robert Mueller’s growing team of Democratic lawyers intends to devote itself to this fiction.

Yet if Mr. Mueller were serious about bringing down a threat to the nation, or even carving himself a place in history, he’d be tackling the second kind of crime, the real kind. These are the crimes that occur constantly and actually harm national security, even if they’re routinely ignored by a self-interested media. We are talking of course about the serial leaking of sensitive information, the daily profession of a new government elite akin to an organized crime network ...

Lucky for Mr. Mueller, he doesn’t even need his army of legal investigators to get an immediate handle on this mafia. He can instead stroll down to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. That’s the purview of Sen. Ron Johnson, who keeps dogged oversight of government among his many self-set tasks.

That mission resulted this week in a shocking staff analysis of the recent deluge of secret-spilling, and the manner in which these unauthorized disclosures are harming national security. It’s the first congressional scrutiny of the leaks—and notable for its straight-up nature. This is no partisan document. It’s a bloodless accounting of a national-security failure, perpetrated by dozens of government employees willfully breaking the law.

The first 126 days of the Trump administration featured 125 stories that leaked harmful information. Just under one a day. The committee staff judged the stories against a 2009 Barack Obama executive order that laid out what counted as information likely to damage national security. And as it chose to not include borderline leaks or “palace intrigue” stories, that number is an understatement.

For reference, the first 126 days of the Obama term featured 18 stories that met the criteria. Ten of those were actually leaks about George W. Bush’s “torture memo,” which Mr. Obama released.

So in reality, the deep state leaked 15 times more often in Trump's first six months than in Obama's. Note, by the way, that during Obama's first six months the "Fast and Furious" gun running scandal was in its formative stages (no leaks), the IRS had already begun targeting opponents of Obama (no leaks), and moves were afoot to normalize relations with Iran (no leaks) and the Obama administration began to distance itself from our best ally in the Middle East, Israel (no leaks). Hmmm.

Strassel goes on the indicate the types of information that has been leaked:

What’s been disclosed? The contents of wiretapped information. The names of individuals the U.S. monitors, and where they are located. The communications channels used to monitor targets. Which agencies are monitoring. Intelligence intercepts. FBI interviews. Grand jury subpoenas. Secret surveillance-court details. Internal discussions. Military operations intelligence. The contents of the president’s calls with foreign leaders.

As Strassel correctly notes, the real scandal is the leaks, and Robert Mueller should focus there. He won't, of course, because in a way, Mueller a charter member of the deep state.