Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Sunday he’s ready to prosecute “anyone who breaks the law” as part of the Department of Justice’s crackdown on government leaks, but he’ll focus on leakers rather than the journalists who report sensitive information.
Rosenstein said DOJ was investigating three times the number of criminal cases sparked by leaks under the Trump administration than it inherited from former President Barack Obama’s tenure.
“We don’t publicize the precise number of leaks, the precise number of referrals, we’ve only talked about it terms of proportion,” Rosenstein told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “But that significant increase has necessitated an increase in resources, so we have reprioritized our cases within the national security division.”
Rosenstein added members of Congress and White House staff were not immune from investigation, with a new unit set up within the FBI to deal with the workload.
“If we identify somebody, no matter what their position is, if they’ve violated the law and that case warrants prosecution, we’ll prosecute it,” Rosenstein said. “Including anybody who breaks the law,” he added when pressed by Wallace.
While Rosenstein said journalists would not be targeted specifically, he said the department was going to take a “fresh look” at its policies on reporters who publish a leak and then refuse to disclose their source or sources.
“We’re after the leakers, not the journalists,” he said. “We don’t prosecute journalists for doing their jobs. We look at the facts and circumstances of each case and we determine whether somebody has committed a crime and whether it’s appropriate to hold them accountable.”
