During his House Judiciary Committee testimony on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions once again grew upset when a member of Congress inferred there was something fishy about his ever-changing statements about Russia and the 2016 campaign, weighed in on the allegations against Roy Moore, and threw cold water on the idea of naming a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton. Yet during the hearing, Sessions did reveal one thing he and the Department of Justice are investigating: the “epidemic” of classified leaks.
According to Sessions, the Justice Department is currently investigating 27 different leaks of classified information, a sharp increase (which he described as reaching “epidemic proportions”) from recent years.
“Members of the committee, we had about nine open investigations of classified leaks in the last three years,” Sessions said. “We have 27 investigations open today. We intend to get to the bottom of these leaks … It cannot be allowed to continue and we will do our best effort to make sure that it does not continue.” CNN has more:
So far this year, the Justice Department has announced — one prosecution of an individual — for allegedly leaking classified information to a journalist.
But journalists and media law experts have presumed that many more investigations were taking place behind the scenes. Sessions confirmed that on Tuesday.
When asked if specific, notable cases like the Steele Dossier were the subject of any of the investigations, Sessions refused to answer.
(Via CNN)