I’ll have far, far more on the leak investigations tomorrow or Monday. But for the moment I want to lay out certain implications suggested by this Jack Goldsmith post.
Goldsmith asks what the scope of the leak investigation is and cites reports that the investigation is only investigating the UndieBomb 2.0 and StuxNet leaks.
However, the Wall Street Journal reports that the two relevant FBI leak investigations concern (1) “leaks about the cyberattack program” and (2) “leaks about a double agent who infiltrated al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.” If the WSJ is right, it would appear that the investigations do not concern leaks about drone attacks and related matters that, like leaks about the Iranian cyber-operation and the AQAP infiltration, have been the subject of recent congressional complaint.
And he cites DOJ saying they can’t tell us the scope of the investigation because it would confirm whether or not reports were correct.
According to the New York Times, DOJ was silent on the subject matter of the investigations because revealing their subject matter “would implicitly confirm that certain reports contained accurate classified information.”
Put these two details together. If DOJ will only investigate leaks of accurate classified information, and if DOJ is really investigating the UndieBomb 2.0 leaks and StuxNet leaks but not the drone stories, one possible explanation (though not the only one) is that the UndieBomb 2.0 and StuxNet stories were accurate, but not the drone stories.
I have suggested the NYT and Klaidman stories came out when they did and in the form they did to distract from earlier reporting on signature strikes run from the NSC. Is the Administration admitting–with the scope of their leak investigations–that those leaks were not the truth?