A Warning From The President p.9

By: Debra Gersh Hernandez

Bill Clinton warns federal staffers that they could be
prosecuted for leaking national security info to the press sp.

PRESIDENT CLINTON HAS warned federal staffers that they could be subject to prosecution if they leak national security information to the press.
In a memo to Cabinet officers, Clinton stated that he was "extremely distressed by several recent, deliberate and unauthorized disclosures of highly sensitive, national security information."
Such disclosures, the memo read, "cannot and will not be treated as innocent leaks of government information. They compromise serious national security secrets and put at risk lives and vital U.S. interests.
"Such disclosures also violate U.S. law, and will be referred to the Department of Justice for investigation, as appropriate, and prosecution," stated the president's memo, a copy of which was obtained by E&P.
Referring to his recent Executive Order revamping the system for classifying documents (E&P, April 22, p. 89), Clinton asked his Cabinet officials "to ensure that information is not improperly classified or overclassified," but also asked them to "impress" on their staffs "the necessity of protecting classified information from unauthorized disclosures.
"I also expect each of you to take appropriate administrative action against any federal employee, regardless of rank, who discloses classified information, and, in appropriate cases, to refer such disclosures to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution," the Clinton memo added.
The Department of Justice does not disclose when or if it opens investigations, but when confidential commitments are violated, it does open an investigation, said DoJ spokesman John Russell.
Russell said that if the material leaked were classified, action would be taken under the espionage act, even if it were disclosed to a domestic news agency.
If it is not secure information that is leaked, it would be prosecuted under theft of government property, he said.
If the material were from a grand jury, regulations prohibiting the release of that information would be enforced, Russell added.
White House spokesman Michael McCurry was quoted by the Washington Times as saying Clinton's memo was prompted by articles in that paper referring to "negotiating papers."
"There were a series of fairly sensitive documents that were leaked to one William Gertz," McCurry was quoted by the Times.
Gertz is the Times' defense and national security affairs reporter.
"As a general proposition, the president feels, and I feel, that tracking down leaks is a fool's errand and can waste a lot of time," McCurry told the Times, adding that compromising classified information is "different."
The White House press office did not respond to E&P's request for further comment.
Gertz told E&P that he did not know for a fact which articles McCurry may have been talking about, but he thought it might have been a series he did about theater missile defense demarcation.
In a story about a memo from the National Security Council outlining a plan with Russia, Gertz said the memo was stamped "secret/prose."