Leaks come from disgruntled career bureaucrats, or disgruntled former security contractors and internet provocateurs, or candidates floating trial balloons, or political opponents with scores to settle. And now that war has gone digital, leaks can be a military offensive.
Take a leak like the outing of bad boy Mike Flynn. His past successes taught him to ignore the rules. For example, when he was in charge of routing ISIS, he decided to leak US intelligence to Pakistan about Pakistan. Just to show those bastards we know where they live. Well of course we do; we have GPS. It was a blatant violation disclosing classified information. But he got away with it.
Now the tables have been turned. His back channel bromance with Russian ambassador Kislyak became front page news. So did his lying to Mike Pence about their sanctions pillow talk. Out came the secret, and down went Flynn. The source of the leak is a mystery still. Like one of those English mystery stories where the stiff had so many enemies, lots of suspects had opportunity and motive.
So who are the suspects in this one? The intelligence community for sure. Just yesterday, they said they’re going to withhold information from the President because they don’t trust him. Imagine that. They don’t trust Him with their information because they think he’ll give it to America’s enemies. You don’t need Julius Rosenberg if you’ve got Donald Trump.
A lot of media outlets are pissed off at this administration too. They’ve all been thrown out of the press conferences except for Breitbart and Golf Courses of the World. Not that it matters. Nothing really is being said at press conference these days that isn’t contradicted by somebody else in the administration five minutes before or after.
If I had to guess, though, I would say it’s some career government employee, stashed in one of the intelligence agencies, who got so pissed off that he ended up blowing the whistle. Kind of like Milton in the movie, “Office Space.” You just don’t screw around with a guy’s stapler.
Deep Throat, America’s most famous leaker, is gone, but his advice still rings true: follow the money. It’s a little more challenging though when we have to convert from dollars to rubles.
Leaks are political safety valves and have a purpose; a fact of nature, like gas escaping a Swamp.
© 2017 The Revolted Colonies ™
Evan Sarzin is the author of Hard Bop Piano and Bud Powell published by Gerard & Sarzin Music Publishing. He writes and publishes Revolted Colonies (http://revoltedcolonies.com).