Former speaker of the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, who is also a staunch supporter of President Trump, advised the president to begin tracking down the people responsible for leaking information in violation of “secrecy acts” and have them thrown in jail. According to Gingrich, this move would cause the “leaks [to] dry up dramatically.”
“I want to draw a distinction,” Gingrich told “Fox and Friends” on Sunday. “There’s political garbage, there are people who go across to the Starbucks near the White House, and they sit and they tell insider stories. That’s unfortunate, and you ought to fire them if you can find them, but that’s not the same as violating the secrecy acts. People who violate the secrecy acts ought to go to jail.”
“What happened with the Manchester information, for example, after the bombing in Manchester, undermined the British investigation, weakened our relationship to our allies, and is dangerous,” Gingrich continued. “Whoever leaked that should go to jail. Now, you start putting a few people in jail, you’ll see the leaks dry up dramatically.”
Following the terror attack in Manchester on Monday, in which 22 people were killed and 60 others wounded, leaks from the intelligence community revealed confidential information regarding the UK’s investigation of the bomber and more such threats to the country.
Later on Thursday, UK authorities temporarily suspended sharing of any intelligence with US agencies after specifics about the investigation in the UK were leaked to the media.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on Friday said that the US was ready to take “full responsibility” for the leaks.
“We take full responsibility for that and we obviously regret that that happened,” Tillerson said. “With respect to the release of information inappropriately … certainly we condemn that.”
Trump, on Sunday, took to Twitter to announce how UK PM Theresa May felt about the leaks.
“British Prime Minister May was very angry that the info the U.K. gave to U.S. about Manchester was leaked. Gave me full details!” Trump wrote.
The same day, Trump further dismissed any reports stemming from anonymous sources, saying, “Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names …. it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!”