The FBI filed an application for a search warrant in 2012 for an email account belonging to Michael Hayden, former head of the National Security Agency and CIA, demonstrating the breadth of the Obama administration’s efforts to pursue leaks of classified information to the press.
The warrant application, filed in November 2012, was unsealed Monday, according to the Daily Beast.
The FBI believed Hayden may have been a source for a June 1, 2012, New York Times article by David Sanger that detailed how then-President Barack Obama ordered cyberattacks on computer systems in Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities. The attacks were code-named Olympic Games, and the program included a computer virus developed by the U.S. and Israel named Stuxnet, which targeted Iran’s Natanz plant.
Hayden, then retired from the CIA, was quoted in the article discussing cyber attacks.
It’s unclear from the application whether the search warrant was granted.
FBI special agent Craig Moringiello of the bureau’s counterintelligence division filed the search warrant affidavit accompanying the application. According to the affidavit, the FBI received transaction records for Hayden’s AOL email address, which indicated he and Sanger exchanged emails 10 times both before and after the New York Times article was published.
The transaction records were cited as evidence in the search warrant applications for the contents of Hayden’s email account.
According to the Daily Beast, the FBI did not find evidence Hayden committed any wrongdoing. The story was eventually tracked to retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who admitted in 2016 he was a source. Cartwright pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and Obama pardoned him in January 2017.
When asked by the Daily Best if he knew about the search warrant, Hayden said in an email, “I don’t think they announce them,” and added a smiley face emoji.
Hayden served as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and led the CIA from 2006 to 2009.
