Michael Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director, said Monday revealing the identity of confidential sources erodes intelligence gathering and law enforcement, days after the name of a suspected FBI informant who spoke with three members of the Trump campaign was leaked to the media.
“I’m very concerned. Look, we used to recruit people and one of the things we would guarantee them is that we can protect you. And now we see the erosion of that in this particular episode,” Hayden said during an interview with CNN.
President Trump demanded Sunday that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI “infiltrated or surveilled” his campaign for political purposes, accusing the bureau of embedding a “spy” in his team.
Several news outlets named the source as Stefan Halper, an American who recently worked at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, while others used identifying information but withheld his name.
Halper reportedly sought out meetings with three Trump campaign officials, including campaign co-chair Sam Clovis, as well as campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
Hayden, a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general, said Halper should be receiving any security measures he requests in the wake of his identity being made public.
“So there might be something with regard to the danger of this particular source, what you have told all sources and all potential sources that you have lost the ability to protect their identity. That’s really degrading not just to the safety of one man but the entire process of intelligence or law enforcement,” he continued.
“Whatever it is you might think it does for your short term personal or political needs, it is doing great danger to the fabric of our government,” Hayden added.
Hayden served former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as director of the National Security Agency. He then continued with the Bush administration as principal deputy director of National Intelligence and CIA director. He stayed in his role at the CIA until February 2009 before he was replaced by former President Barack Obama nominee Leon Panetta.
