@layman,
At least in public settings I've heard Democrats agree that the leaking has gotten way out of hand, but I doubt they want it to go away while Trump is president.
At some point there is bound to be a very serious consequence from one of these leaks that will be directly attributable to the leak. I hope it doesn't involve anyone dying but it could.
We already have a situation where our allies are rightly concerned about sharing intelligence with us. Look at the leaking to the US press, by someone in US law enforcement, of details about the UK investigation into the Manchester bombing. No one can argue that such a leak in any way benefited the American people (not that that is ever a legitimate reason to criminally leak classified information as has been argued in other cases), and so the motivation of the contemptible jackass(es) who was responsible had to be something either banal ( a desire to curry favor with the media) or venal (e.g. cash).
The Trump Administration can't rely on the media to police themselves on this. It's reached a point where it's not too far beyond the realm of possibility that if some miscreant leaked the US nuclear launch codes, the NY Times would print them in the morning edition. They also, apparently, can't rely on appeals to patriotism or even threats of prosecution. You're absolutely right that a much greater effort needs to be made to find these criminals and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. The leaks are being made with obvious impunity.
Comey follows his public testimony with further testimony behind closed doors and details of that testimony are leaked. There had to be a finite number of people who heard that testimony and everyone of them, including Democrat and Republican Senators, should be compelled to submit to a lie detector test. It may not provide sufficient evidence to prosecute anyone who fails the test, but perhaps the fact that they failed might be leaked and a little karma will be in play.
A big part of the problem is that, despite any public protestation, it has become a common and virtually acceptable practice for politicians and government officials, including members of presidential Administrations, to leak information for political purposes that cast them in a favorable light. This is no different at all from leaks intended to harm political enemies and has to be stopped. Trump can't very well make a righteous cause of stopping leaking if members of his Administration are doing so to enhance his political positions. Everyone in DC will agree that the leaks have become outrageous and are harmful...except those that serve their political ends.
It's a huge element of the DC political swamp that has to be drained. No one can be immune from consequences. These bastards don't own this information; it's not theirs to disseminate as they see fit, and certainly not to benefit their political agendas and ambitions. The American people own the information and they are the ones, not fat cat politicos in DC, who are most likely to suffer if a serious national security leak results in harm to the nation.
Congress could help put a stop to it by passing tougher laws, but they won't, and public figures and everyday citizens have got to stop romanticizing these assholes as some sort of whistle blowing civic heroes.
Reality Leigh Winner the 25 year old employee of a government contractor who has been charged with leaking classified information to a news outlet has been lauded as a patriot by many. The idiot Rosie O'Donnell dontated $1,000 to the Go Fund Me account established to help pay for Winner's defense.
After she was arrested it was discovered that since Trump was elected she had been posting to Facebook and Twitter statements like
Trump is a
"a soulless ginger orangutan," and
"the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the White House”
According to prosecutors it was discovered that Winner had been ...
"coaching family members via jailhouse phone calls how to manipulate investigators and the press... Her plan, they said, is to portray herself as some sort of scared, doe-eyed neophyte."
WSB-TV in Atlanta reported:
"
[Prosecutors] said in recorded jailhouse calls, she told her mother how to play her side of the story in the media— as someone who was scared she'd disappear from an interrogation room in her Augusta home after Saturday's raid."
"Prosecutors said a phone call to her sister expressed Winner's confidence in how to play the court during her bond hearing.
"I'm pretty, white and cute," she allegedly told her sister. Prosecutors said Winner told her sister she would braid her hair and cry in court."
Judge Brian Epps who denied her request for bail expressed concern over her apparent fascination with the Middle East and Islamic terrorism, based on information found when investigators searched her house. Prosecutor Jennifer Solari told the court that investigators seized a notebook from Winner's house and in it, Winner made references about traveling to the Middle East and wrote,
"I want to burn the White House down ... find somewhere in Kurdistan to live. Haha."
Her computer apparently revealed repeated visits to Islamist websites.
To be fair, Solari also told the judge that the government was not trying to connect Winner to terrorism or suggesting that she had become a jihadi, it's not a crime to post obscenity laden attacks against Trump on social media, and her reference to wanting to burn down the White House may not have been anymore serious than nitwit Madonna's same expressed desire. It's also not a crime to encourage your family to attempt to manipulate the MSM in the hope of securing an outcome similar to that of Chelsea Manning's, but it certainly is a sign of her stupidity: It's common knowledge that inmate calls are monitored by prison officials, but then she caught because of her stupidity too.
Put all these things together though and it doesn't quite paint a picture of a heroic young patriot who only wanted to expose the abuses of our government. Instead it paints the picture of a very stupid and venal young woman who saw an opportunity to somehow injure a POTUS that she obviously detested, and in a fit of nasty pique took it.
Most importantly, regardless of what picture one accepts as the actual Reality Leigh Winner, she is charged with a criminal offense, and by the looks of it the government has her cold. If convicted she will face a maximum sentence of 10 years which we can only hope she will receive and serve before some fool of a liberal president pardons her because she is
pretty, white and cute and
has suffered enough.
