Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Sunday said “it’s borderline, if not over the line of treason” to leak highly classified information gleaned from foreign intelligence, citing Britain’s alarm at seeing details of its probe into the Manchester terror bombing in the U.S. press.
President Trump ordered the Justice Department and other agencies to conduct a “complete review” of the leaks and to hunt for those involved in disseminating the intelligence.
The name of the suspected suicide bomber was leaked to American news media, and the New York Times obtained photographs purported to show remnants of the bomb detonated outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
“If it came from the United States, it’s totally unacceptable. And I don’t know why people do these kind of things, but it’s borderline, if not over the line, of treason,” Mr. Kelly told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Kelly also downplayed a bombshell report in the Washington Post that said Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s key adviser and son-in-law, requested a secret channel of communications between the transition team and the Kremlin.
The report said he wanted to use a Russian facility to evade detection from U.S. agencies.
“I know Jared. He’s a great guy, decent guy,” Mr. Kelly told NBC. “His number one, number one interest, really, is the nation so you know there’s a lot of different ways to communicate, backchannel, publicly with other countries. I don’t see any big issue here relative to Jared.”
Pressed on whether it showed good judgment, given Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election, Mr. Kelly said: “It was before the government was in place during the transition period I think, from what I understand. I think any time you can open lines of communication with anyone, whether they’re good friends or not so good friends, is a smart thing to do,” he said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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