Whistlegate Reveals Some
Very Chatty Minders of State Secrets

New article by Eric Felten, RealClearInvestigations,
Published Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019

A CIA analyst's "whistleblower" complaint against President Trump shows a flouting of rules within the government against intelligence-sharing beyond the need to know, Eric Felten reports for RealClearInvestigations. And that could pose risks to national security.

Felten reports:

• The whistleblower and his sources, however justified they felt, almost certainly violated regulations aimed at preserving state secrets, legal experts say.
• The basic rule is two-fold: 1) you don't share classified information with someone lacking proper clearance; and 2) you don't share with someone who doesn't have an official need to know the information.
• The CIA analyst behind the complaint didn't have sufficient clearance or a need to know. By his own admission, he relied on anonymous "officials" who did, not his own firsthand knowledge.
• If the "whistleblower" had had clearance, he could have accessed the intelligence himself, including the transcript of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian President at the center of the uproar.
• Coming by information in the normal course of business, as the CIA analyst claims, doesn't absolve the parties of over-sharing outside of one's level of clearance.
• The issue isn't just intelligence officials' disdain for President Trump; there has been a longstanding failure to rein in the intelligence community's rumor mill.
• This talking out of school was made almost inevitable by the nation's recent experience with terrorism.
• Tough restrictions imposed after some of the biggest spy breaches in U.S. history fell by the wayside after 9/11, when government officials concluded that closer communication among agencies might have helped prevent the attacks.
• The government has been hesitant to punish top officials who share information, including former FBI Director James Comey.
• "What is truly endangered now is the ability to keep anything secret," says one intelligence scholar.