Trump bashes FBI for being ‘totally unable’ to stop leaks

President Trump said the FBI is “totally unable” to crack down on U.S. government employees who plan to leak sensitive information to the media.

On social media Friday morning, the commander in chief said the bureau couldn’t even halt leakers within its own organization. He described this supposed proliferation of leakers as a longtime problem that could have a devastating impact on the United States.

The Twitter fuming followed CNN and AP reports that Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to publicly dispute a media report on the alleged regular conversations between Trump’s campaign advisers and Russian intelligence. But the AP cited a White House official — not an FBI source.

The official reportedly said that the FBI had told Priebus that a New York Times report about intelligence agencies intercepting phone calls between Trump’s team and Russia was inaccurate. The bureau has not officially commented on the matter.

Priebus’ request led to immediate backlash from Democrats who argued the administration has no place pressuring the FBI to make statements concerning a pending investigation of its own staff.

Late Thursday night, White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that the administration didn’t try to pressure the FBI into doing anything improper. “We didn’t try to knock the story down. We asked them to tell the truth,” he said.

Trump, who embraced WikiLeaks during the campaign, has repeatedly complained about leaks since winning the election.

On Feb. 13, Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned after reports surfaced that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about his phone conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. During a heated press conference Feb. 16, Trump lashed out at journalists, yet again, for the tone of their coverage. He somewhat confusingly confirmed reports about leaks as real but said the news they generated was still “fake.”

“The leaks are absolutely real. You’re the one that wrote about them and reported them,” Trump said. “I mean, the leaks are real. You know what they said. You saw it. And the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg became acting national security adviser until Trump revealed his choice for a full-time replacement: Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

Trump’s relationships with the press and the intelligence community have been strained at best and highly contentious at worst. He has called reporters “among the worst people I’ve ever met” and downplayed the conclusion of intelligence officials that Russia had hacked into the U.S. presidential campaign.

Late last month, the celebrity businessman turned commander in chief visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., in an attempt to ameliorate tensions between his administration and the intelligence community after weeks of ridicule. In one tweet ahead of the CIA visit, Trump even compared U.S. intelligence leaks to Nazi Germany.

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