Gabbard pledges to ‘aggressively pursue’ leaks from US intelligence agencies

(Reuters) – U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has pledged to crack down on people within the intelligence community who leak information to journalists.

Gabbard, who oversees 18 spy agencies, said she would be “aggressively pursuing recent leakers” in order to hold them accountable for unauthorized disclosures.

“Politically motivated leaks undermine our national security and the trust of the American people, and will not be tolerated,” Gabbard wrote on Friday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Gabbard listed recent examples of what she said were leaks of information concerning Israel-Iran, the U.S.-Russia relationship and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center to media outlets including Huffington Post, The Washington Post, NBC News, and the Record.

“Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such,” Gabbard said.

During his first term, Republican President Donald Trump was angered by leaks to news outlets and his administration pursued both journalists and their sources inside the federal government.

His administration secretly secured data on members of Congress, their staffers, journalists and a former White House lawyer as part of a probe into leaks of classified information – a move that prompted former Attorney General Merrick Garland to strengthen Department of Justice policies on obtaining records of lawmakers in 2021.

Garland's Justice Department also changed its policy to broadly ban prosecutors from subpoenaing reporters' phone and email records after an outcry over its actions during the Trump-era leak investigations.

The Justice Department's internal watchdog in 2024 found that prosecutors' decision to subpoena phone and email records from members of Congress and their staff during Trump's first term risked a chilling effect on congressional oversight.

(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Alistair Bell)