On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) responded to the White House and Department of Defense downplaying the impact of the Pentagon leak by stating that “wholeheartedly, completely, any leak is bad.” And “Any leaks that provide information about our assessments of foreign governments, foreign leaderships, foreign capabilities” are damaging.
Co-host Willie Geist asked, “The White House and the Pentagon somewhat playing down the information that was actually exposed and made public in terms of national security risks. Based on what you’ve seen, though, what’s your assessment of what’s out there?”
Spanberger responded, “Any leak is bad, wholeheartedly, completely, any leak is bad. Any leak can speak to sources and methods, can speak to the types of relationships and information-sharing that we have from our partners who are providing intelligence back to us. Any leaks that provide information about our assessments of foreign governments, foreign leaderships, foreign capabilities — be they our allies or our adversaries — it is all bad.”
She continued, “Within the scope of how bad it is, certainly, the Department of State and Department of Defense officials who are doing a lot of the work of calling, engaging directly with their counterparts, certainly taking ownership, I would assume, of this event and attempting to ensure that the relationships we have are not impacted is the action that they should be taking. But, frankly, every minute of the day that a Department of State, a national security person, or a Department of Defense person is taking making phone calls, explaining, or excusing or discussing a leak of intelligence out into the public is a minute of the day that they are not focused on U.S. national security interests wholly and fully, is a minute of the day that they are not leading their department’s focus on the service members or the intel. or diplomatic professionals that they lead. And it is a distraction that is, in this case, present because one young man released information that he swore an oath to protect. It’s against the law. I thank the FBI and law enforcement for their strong work to ensure that they were able to determine who this leaker was and I assume that continued action will be clear in the coming months.”
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