President Donald Trump wants to crack down on national security leaks, but said Thursday that he is “honored” by revelations about inner-White House drama.
“We have two leaks,” Trump told reporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. “You have the leaks coming out of intelligence and various departments having to do with Syria, having to do with all sorts of different places, having to do frankly with North Korea. And those are very serious. And then you have the leaks where people want to love me and they’re all fighting for love. Those are not very important but certainly we don’t like them. Those are little inner-White House leaks.”
Trump’s time in office has been marked by leaks, and certainly of two types like he described to reporters. Examples of these differing leaks are the release of transcripts of his phone calls with foreign leaders and leaks about his displeasure with various White House aides.
He said that he is “somewhat honored by” these palace intrigue stories, adding, “but the important leaks and the leaks that the attorney general is looking at very strongly are the leaks coming out of intelligence and we have to stop them for the security and the national security of our country.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions hosted a press conference last week in which he announced that the Justice Department is taking an aggressive stance toward intelligence leaks and that it has tripled the amounts of open leak investigations.