Is the intelligence community going overboard with the leaks?
I fear playing into Trump’s “it’s all about leaks” narrative, but I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable with nature of leaked information.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) May 30, 2017
I don’t have a firm opinion about this yet, but I will say this: Whoever is leaking the dirt about Jared Kushner is doing a very considered job of it. Instead of just dropping a big bomb, they seem to be very carefully dropping one tiny new item every few days. First we hear that a person “close to Trump” is part of the FBI investigation. Then we hear it’s Kushner. Then we hear it’s about Russia. Then we hear it’s about setting up backchannel comms. This guarantees a steady drip of new headlines and keeps the story in the news for weeks and weeks. It’s the most damaging possible way of handling leaks like this.
I’ll cop to some partisan feelings about this. Is it wrong to deliberately string this stuff out in order to cause maximum damage? Sure, of course. But it’s also what Julian Assange did to Hillary Clinton. It’s what Judicial Watch did to Clinton. It’s what the FBI did to Clinton. It’s what Republican congressional committees did to Clinton. This is just the way the game is played these days, and there are no innocents on either side of the aisle.
