President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that government officials who leak information to the media should be shot, referring to anyone who makes unauthorized disclosures to the press as “the scum of the earth.”
“In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said during an Arizona rally. “When they leak what time you’re going to attack a country — and the reason you’re attacking is really for defense because you don’t want them to have a weapon that can blow up millions of people at one shot — now leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly.”
Minutes later, the president compared journalists to the leakers, saying members of the media are “almost as bad.”
“They leak false information that makes them a leaker,” Trump said, referencing members of the press. “Oftentimes without a source — I think they make up a lot of the sources.”
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Since the start of his second term, Trump has directed several departments to impose strict rules on their staff to suppress unauthorized disclosures.
Last year, the Pentagon briefly instituted and proposed administering polygraphs to target alleged leakers.
For decades, government employees — particularly those working within the Department of Defense — have had to sign non-disclosure agreements covering classified information. But in May, the Trump administration proposed instituting a sweeping, government-wide NDAs for all federal employees.
The president also authorized the FBI to raid the home of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson in January, alleging her correspondence with a U.S. Navy veteran and Pentagon contractor, who had top-secret clearance but viewed and made copies of highly classified material without prior authorization, posed a national security threat. The Department of Justice arrested and charged Natanson’s source with the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information days before the raid on her home.
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