For two years, top-level officials within our nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies and their allies in Congress have systematically targeted President Trump and his associates for destruction.
They have done so by colluding with the media to selectively and illegally leak classified and sensitive information from numerous investigations into Trump-Russia. Their motive seems pretty clear: overturn the results of an election via impeachment as if we lived in some “Banana Republic.” And having visited over 110 countries and six continents as a retired Naval Officer, I know a Banana Republic when I see one.
Some unelected bureaucrats collaborated with former British Intelligence agent Christopher Steele as he compiled political opposition research for Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton Campaign and DNC, via Perkins Coie law firm.
Others launched FBI surveillance of Trump Campaign members based on rumor and innuendo from foreign sources like Steele and former Australian Ambassador to the U.K., Alexander Downer.
The #Resistance went to the very top.
- Peter Strzok was the No. 2 official in the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Division and a key player in both investigations of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server and the Trump Campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. His FBI lover Lisa Page was the legal counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The most recently revealed Strzok-Page text discusses a “media leak strategy with DOJ.” And how their sister intelligence agencies were “leaking like mad.” Despite denials from Strzok’s lawyer that he was trying to prevent leaks, his actual texts and timeline from April 2017 belie that claim.
- Former FBI Director James Comey admittedly passed sensitive memos about meetings with President Trump to a friend to leak to the New York Times in order to help generate a Special Counsel appointment. He was successful.
- Former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly leaked sensitive information from the Steele Dossier to then-Sen. Harry Reid, who promptly disclosed it to the public.
- Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, the No. 4 official at the DOJ, continued to feed information to FBI leaders from his longtime friend Steele, even after the FBI officially cut ties with him Ohr’s wife Nellie, a Russian expert, even worked for Fusion GPS to probe Trump.
Most of the leaks targeted Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, two members of the National Security Advisory Committee. And most of those breaking news scoops appeared in either the Washington Post or New York Times. But it didn’t stop there.
As the former Trump campaign director of national security and the person who supervised the committee to which Page and Papadopoulos were assigned, I have also been the victim of leaks.
For example, in late Summer 2017, the very next day after my Special Counsel four-hour closed testimony, Rosalind Helderman from the Washington Post telephoned out of the blue saying she heard the special counsel was interested in a specific topic that had come up. Coincidence?
I immediately called the FBI Agents who conducted my interview warning of severe consequences if there were any more leaks — if that’s what had happened. They swore it was not them personally, and they’d relay my concerns to their supervisor.
Also in Summer 2017, when the House Intelligence Committee postponed my allegedly private testimony, two reporters from CNN and ABC called asking if it was true that I had canceled for unknown reasons. Pure character assassination attempt designed to make a national news story out of nothing.
Reporters who have repeatedly received and published leaks stemming from the Trump-Russia investigations, like The New York Times’ Ali Watkins, and Roz Helderman, both of whom regularly targeted Page and Papadopoulos, should be compelled to testify before Congress, or any other criminal or civil trials, and reveal the identity of their sources.
Leaking information from Trump-Russia investigations is not a victimless act. Aside from fueling impeachment calls against President Trump and damaging the lives of innocent people who have been swept up in investigations and lost their jobs (and who have yet to be accused of any wrongdoing whatsoever), they have cost millions of dollars in personal legal bills to defend ourselves and reputations.
The DOJ inspector general and Congress must hold the leakers and complicit co-conspirators in the media accountable. Failure to act swiftly and decisively guarantees the further erosion of the rule of law and democratic principles as defined by the Constitution. America must never truly become a Banana Republic.
J.D. Gordon is a former Pentagon spokesman and retired Navy commander. He has served as a full-time senior national security & foreign policy advisor to former Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee and Herman Cain.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.