Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

In a suspense-filled announcement, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared war Friday against the leaking of classified government information to the mainstream media.

Speaking after Sessions was Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence, who is working with Sessions to uncover the leaking criminals and bring them to justice.

After Sessions and Coats concluded their statements, they did not take questions shouted at them by reporters — who are also being looked at in their complicit role in the leaking along with those doing the publishing of the leaks.

The current situation with leakers is reminiscent of what happened in 1971 when military analyst Daniel Ellsberg – employed by the RAND Corporation — released the ‘Pentagon Papers,’ a top-secret study of decision making during the Vietnam War, to the New York Times and 17 other newspapers.

Ellsberg was arrested and charged with espionage, but two years later the charges were dismissed, according to Wikipedia. Ellsberg’s trial was extensively covered by the media in their attempt to undermine former President Richard Nixon. What happened more than four-decades ago still resonates to this day.

There are obviously too many people with too much access to classified information that are apparently willing to take the risks associated with such illegal behavior, but why? Because the leakers – “anonymous sources with security clearances” as Sessions calls them, are on a team mission to remove President Trump from office by any means possible.

The two most recent leaks are word-for-word transcripts of private conversations between President Trump and the leaders of Australia and Mexico that took place in January 2017 soon after the president’s inauguration. These leaks are unprecedented in their content. These transcripts were given illegally to the Washington Post who immediately ran with the story without regard to the president’s privacy or national security. The Post will protect their sources for these leaks. The leakers, if caught, are facing stiff penalties in their attempt to undermine the Trump presidency.

There are only so many employees within the national security agencies that set up these private telephone calls between President Trump and other world leaders. But seeing the time delay from January until now, who knows who did what and when? A difficult crime puzzle to unravel, and that’s the challenge for DOJ prosecutors and FBI investigators.

With Sessions’ announcement on Friday, there is a new push going on within the DOJ to find the leakers and stop the outflow of classified information. If it’s not hackers breaking into secure computer systems, it’s the leakers ripping off sensitive material and releasing it to the media to inflict political damage against President Trump, and in doing so, threatening democracy in America.

The Washington Post defends the release of these private presidential conversations. Their reporters have analyzed every word looking for discrepancies between what President Trump says now and what he said to the Australian and Mexican leaders six-months ago. There are differences, but so what. These are private conversations and political negotiations that routinely take place between countries. Of course, every mainstream media outlet is carrying the leaked Washington Post transcript story non-stop. Their reporters and TV news political commentators are in a frenzy to nit-pick every last word of these transcripts.

Some say leaks are part of everyday life in Washington and they can’t be stopped. Sessions says otherwise and his DOJ had better come up with the culprits and make some examples of the leakers by mercilessly prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law regardless of who they are or who they work for.

There are too many holes in the dike. The floodgates of leaking need to be closed.

Alcoholics and drug addicts are not addicted to the drugs or the booze, but rather the escape from reality much like the anti-Trump protesters and ‘resisters’ are addicted to the protests, the investigations and the fight with no end in sight.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.