Since President Trump assumed office in January, the U.S. has faced an “unprecedented wave of potentially damaging leaks of information” coming from the administration, a new Senate report finds.
The document, from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, was first reported by Politico.
Between Jan. 20 and May 25, 2017, at least 125 stories were leaked with information that was potentially damaging to national security: one leak a day.
The report says that leaks of national security information during previous administrations “were relatively rare, even with America’s vibrant free press.”
“But the leak frenzy has gone far beyond the Kremlin and has extended to other sensitive information that could harm national security,” according to the report. “President Trump’s private conversations with other foreign leaders have shown up in the press, while secret operations targeting America’s most deadly adversaries were exposed in detail.”
The report found through a narrow search that leaks of comparable information during the Trump administration were about seven times higher than the same period during the two previous administrations.
The majority of these leaks, 78, concerned the Russia probes, while other leaks included other leaks included potentially sensitive U.S. intelligence. Almost all of the stories leaked were about the president or his administration.
“In contrast, only half of the stories leaked during the comparable period of the Obama administration were about President Obama or his administration; the other half concerned President Bush and his anti-terrorism tactics,” according to the report.
The report states that a balance between democratic imperatives and the government’s job to keep our country safe must find a cohesive balance. It claims that the balance is under threat with these recent surges of harmful leaks of information and urges for it to be restored.