Trump mounts bid to find leakers, as speculation surrounds Obama officialshttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/17/trump-mounts-bid-to-find-leakers-as-speculation-surrounds-obama-officials.htmlPresident Trump is setting out to uncover the saboteurs leaking damaging details about his administration, as speculation intensifies over whether current officials or a cabal of Obama lieutenants – or both – are turning the faucets.
One former senior intelligence official told Fox News he suspects ex-intelligence and other security officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, were in some way involved in revealing details of Michael Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador. Those details contradicted what Flynn had told Vice President Pence and other Trump officials, leading to his resignation as national security adviser earlier this week.
“There were rumors from Day 1 when Mike Flynn signed aboard Team Trump that people were going to come after him,” the source said, suggesting it was part of an effort to preserve the Iran nuclear deal and settle old grudges. “Individuals within the intelligence community that fired him once didn’t want him to come back.”
A Clapper spokesman put out a statement late Thursday appearing to distance the former intel boss from any leaks, voicing support for a probe while urging the new administration to take a sober approach to the investigation.
“Leaks need to be investigated, but those investigations should be conducted in a manner that is not disparaging of our dedicated IC professionals, nor destructive to the entire community,” Clapper spokesman Shawn Turner said.
How exactly Trump’s investigation proceeds is not yet clear. He said during his Thursday news conference he’s called on the Justice Department to “look into the leaks” that have buffeted the start of his White House tenure.
“Those are criminal leaks,” Trump said.
The White House also is said to be looking at hiring New York financier Stephen Feinberg to lead an intelligence community review.
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A vocal critic of the Iran deal who, in February, delivered the Trump administration statement putting the Islamic Republic “on notice,” Flynn’s views also run counter to the aims of Brennan and former Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes.
Brennan, a longtime Obama loyalist, said in November it would be the “height of folly” if the Trump administration were to tear up the Iran deal, as the then-president-elect had publicly stated he aimed to do. Rhodes perhaps had the most metaphorical skin in the game. As Obama’s top foreign policy adviser, Rhodes had helped engineer a self-described “echo chamber” to promote, and ultimately push, the deal across the finish line.
“They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say,” Rhodes bragged to The New York Times in a fawning May profile.
