Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Intelligence

The Law of Leaks

Susan Hennessey, Helen Klein Murillo
Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 3:44 PM

The President is having a bad week. His National Security Adviser has resigned in disgrace as accusations of improper contacts between then-Candidate Trump and his associates embroil the already chaotic and dysfunctional White House. With mounting calls for bipartisan congressional investigations, a steady stream of media scoops regarding the ongoing investigation adds ever more fuel to the fire. Wherever it leads, the story of “the Russia Connection” will not be going away anytime soon.

President Trump with ABC's David Muir / The White House

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

The President is having a bad week. His National Security Adviser has resigned in disgrace as accusations of improper contacts between then-Candidate Trump and his associates embroil the already chaotic and dysfunctional White House. With mounting calls for bipartisan congressional investigations, a steady stream of media scoops regarding the ongoing investigation adds ever more fuel to the fire. Wherever it leads, the story of “the Russia Connection” will not be going away anytime soon.

Amidst the chaos, President Trump has found the “real scandal.” Surprisingly, Trump insists the scandal is neither the shocking onslaught of reports of contacts between his own campaign and intelligence agents of a hostile foreign power, nor his own refusal to provide information regarding his financial interests in Russia. Instead, the President once again takes aim at our own intelligence services.


Susan Hennessey was the Executive Editor of Lawfare and General Counsel of the Lawfare Institute. She was a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law. Prior to joining Brookings, Ms. Hennessey was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the National Security Agency. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Helen Klein Murillo is a student at Harvard Law School, where she is an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Helen holds a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from the University of California, Irvine.

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