The man in charge of internal security of the nation’s intelligence services says there is so much leaking of classified information right now that “we’re not dealing with it.” Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center made the admission in a recent interview with the Cipher Brief, a website dedicated to national and global security issues.
Evanina’s startling disclosure came in response to a question about how the federal government is dealing with a “deluge of leaks,” something President Trump has often publicly complained about during his first eight months in office. Evanina said:
Evanina went on to say that “significant damage [is] being done” as a result of the leaks:
Evanina’s interview with the Cipher Brief took place in late July or early August and contains some additional eyebrow-raising observations. Regarding the 2016 elections, Evanina said that “Putin has achieved his mission” because Russia “was a value in our election”:
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is making no effort to downplay Evanina’s stark assessment about the current state of the U.S. intelligence community, even posting a link to the interview on the DNI website under the heading “Tackling Insider Threat—Everything From Leaking Classified Information To Potential Workplace Violence.”
One of Evanina’s first responsibilities as director of the NCSC in 2014 was dealing with the fallout from Edward Snowden’s massive national security leaks the year before. Evanina was reportedly considered as a possible interim replacement for FBI director James Comey after President Trump fired Comey last spring.
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has, according to a BuzzFeed News report, requested that all department and agencies—“from the vice president and cabinet heads to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the director of the Peace Corps” schedule training on “‘unauthorized disclosures’—of classified and certain unclassified information.”
