President Trump and his supporters have been critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his weakness in the Russia investigation.
Conservatives have wondered why Deep State leakers go unpunished while Trump associates are terrorized by Robert Mueller and indicted for process crimes completely unrelated to the 2016 election.
Sessions stepped up and indicted a key Deep State leaker and now all hell is breaking loose.
James Wolfe was the Director of Security United States Senate Intelligence Committee.
Wolfe used this position to pass classified information to numerous reporters including then BuzzFeed and current New York Times reporter Ali Watkins.
Watkins published a story in April 2017 about Trump campaign aide Carter Page and his meetings with a Russian spy in 2013.
The Russians tried to recruit Page, but the effort failed and Page ended up working with the FBI to help capture the Russian operatives.
Watkins – with classified information allegedly provided to her by Wolfe – published a story on BuzzFeed that described the contents of conversation captured on wiretaps where two Russian spies discussed trying to recruit page
“A court filing by the US government contains a transcript of a recorded conversation in which Podobnyy speaks with one of the other men busted in the spy ring, Igor Sporyshev, about trying to recruit someone identified as “Male-1.” BuzzFeed News has confirmed that “Male-1” is Page.”
The first count on the indictment nailed Wolfe for making a false statement to the FBI about his contacts with the reporters who published articles on Page.
It read:
“… that the defendant executed a written questionnaire in which he falsely stated and represented to agents of the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation that he did not have contact with any reporter, when in truth and in fact, and as he then well knew and believed, WOLFE did have contact with REPORTER #1, REPORTER #3, and REPORTER #4, variously, on multiple occasions from at least in or around December 2015 until at least on or about December 15,2017.”
The Second count of the indictment charged Wolfe with making false statements about passing classified information on to a reporter in March and April of 2017
“…the defendant falsely stated and represented to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he did not disclose to REPORTER #2 information that he learned as Director of Security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that was not otherwise publicly available, when in truth and in fact, and as he then well knew and believed, WOLFE did disclose such information to REPORTER #2, between on or about March 17, 2017, and on or about April 3, 2017 .”
And finally, the Department of Justice nailed Wolf for lying about being the source of classified information to a third reports in October 2017 “…in that the defendant falsely stated and represented to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he did not disclose to REPORTER #3 information that he learned as Director of Security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and that was not otherwise publicly available, when in truth and in fact, and as he then well knew and believed, WOLFE did disclose such information to REPORTER #3, during in or around October 2017.”
The Department of Justice nailed Wolfe in part by searching the phone and email records of Watkins.
Investigators did not snoop through the contents of her communications.
And while members of the media may howl about an attack on the First Amendment, the Obama administration used these exact same tactics against Fox News reporter James Rosen.
In addition, there is no safe harbor for committing a crime because you talk to a reporter.
The government has a right to track down individuals who leak classified intelligence.
The email and phone records obtained from Watkins were not used to jail or harass the reporter.
They were used as evidence to run down a lead.
Investigators also found that Wolfe and Watkins had engaged in a multi-year romantic relationship and photographs of the two together as well as the volume of communication between Wolfe and Watkins around the time the article about Page was published led them to nail Wolfe for being one of the key Deep State leakers.
Trump supporters hope this is the first of many such indictments.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in the hunt to identify and prosecute Deep State leakers.
