Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that all leakers of classified information must be tracked down, three days after a federal contractor was arrested for allegedly leaking classified information on Russia to a news outlet.
“We just can’t have everybody in the intelligence community, they have such power to suck up every bit of every transmission, every communication we ever made, we can’t just have them willy-nilly releasing that to the public,” the Kentucky Republican said on Fox Tuesday.
“All of them have to be found, and I guarantee there’s a paper or a computer trail of who released these documents and who released these conversations,” he said.
.@RandPaul: All of the leakers have to be found. We can’t have intel officials willy-nilly releasing classified information to the public. pic.twitter.com/tV5wVEgkGX
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 6, 2017
The Department of Justice announced charges Monday against Reality Leigh Winner, a federal contractor who had top security clearance, for allegedly sending materials from the National Security Agency to The Intercept. Winner was arrested Saturday.
The Intercept reported that Russian intelligence officials launched a cyberattack against a voting software company before the 2016 election.
It’s the first leak case under President Trump, who has spoken out angrily against leakers.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz also criticized several government agencies Monday for being unable to prevent leaks.
“I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, I don’t care what administration,” Chaffetz said. “When you have classified information, you cannot put that out there just because you think it would be a good idea. I want people in handcuffs, and I want to see people behind bars.”
