If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.
I recently read some of the transcripts of Nixon's Watergate tapes, and they spent hours trying to figure out who was leaking and providing information to Carl and myself.
I expect VA's inspector general and the FBI to work closely together so that we can identify and eliminate the flaws that allowed this leak and prosecute any criminal acts.
You want me to become a leaker? I'm not. I do not leak any news from the Cabinet sessions.
One of my books, called 'Moscow Station,' revealed that a KGB archivist had defected from Russia to the FBI. And I knew that he was safe, and revealing this would not jeopardize him. But nevertheless, the FBI started a leak investigation.
The Obama administration appears to regard intelligence leaks and briefings more or less like briefings by the Democratic National Committee or White House flack Jay Carney. You use any information at hand, classified or not, and you spin it any way you like, fairly or not.
I haven't leaked anything to anybody. They are wrong!
In Washington, the accepted method for passing along information about how the government fails to meet real-world needs is to leak it.
Leaks are not the problem; they are the symptom. They reveal a disconnect between what people want and need to know and what they actually do know. The greater the secrecy, the more likely a leak.
Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.