President Trump said Thursday that “low-life leakers” “will be caught” and demanded an apology from The New York Times, among others, in the wake of recent reports tying some of his team to Russian operatives during last year’s campaign.
“Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
“The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!” the president also tweeted.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that the president takes leaks “extremely seriously.”
“I think he made it pretty clear this morning that he was going to take this as aggressively as possible and certainly hunt down the low-life leakers, as he called them,” she said on Fox News.
“I certainly think you find some of them. Again, I think that this president is going to take extreme measures to do exactly that,” she said.
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The Times was one of the publications to report this week that members of Mr. Trump’s team were in touch with Russian officials throughout last year’s campaign — a charge the president and his team have repeatedly and steadfastly denied.
The report did say officials interviewed saw no evidence of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russians on the hacking of Democratic officials or efforts to influence the election, and that it’s unclear whether the conversations even had anything to do with Mr. Trump.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is denying reports that intelligence officials have withheld some intelligence from Mr. Trump.
“Any suggestion that the U.S. Intelligence Community is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the President and his national security team is not true,” the ODNI said in a statement Wednesday night.
The statement came in response to a Wall Street Journal story that intelligence officials have withheld some information from Mr. Trump over concerns that the White House can’t be trusted to keep secrets.
• Dave Boyer contributed to this article.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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