DAVID MARCUS: How jailing deep-state leakers could be good for journalism

In the hours after the American strike on Iran’s Fardow nuclear facility, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand got what would once have been the scoop of a lifetime, a leaked report showing little damage had been done. But it turns out that it is now all but certain that Bertrand and CNN were manipulated by political actors.

In the days since, everyone from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Israeli government, the Central Intelligence Agency, to President Trump himself have all assessed that far more damage was done than the initial “low confidence” leaked report indicated.

TRUMP GOES AFTER CNN, NY TIMES FOR ‘FAKE NEWS’ ABOUT STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES

The incident underscores a serious problem for journalism: The instant credulity which the liberal media gives to any leaker with information harmful to President Trump is leaving the American citizen badly misinformed.

We all owe a debt to the leaker who acts selflessly and altruistically to reveal important information the government is hiding. But leakers who peddle selective information simply to damage the president for partisan reasons? That’s a different species altogether. Reporters have to be able to spot the difference in order to get the public good information put in proper context.

The reason that journalists have traditionally given leakers a high level of trust is that they are supposedly putting themselves in harm’s way to reveal the truth. This is similar to the legal concept that an admission against one’s own interest carries greater weight.

But in today’s political and media environment, leakers are almost never caught and punished. We still have no idea who leaked the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, for example, so these leakers, these insiders, have learned to game the system.

This time, it is essential that the Trump administration focus on finding and punishing the Fordow leakers. Doing so could quickly and dramatically improve American journalism.

When Bertrand allegedly talked to seven people for her story minimizing the damage done to the Iranian nuclear program, did she ask herself why these deep state folks wanted the half-baked story rushed out? Because, it almost certainly wasn’t pure patriotic duty.

Had it turned out to be true that President Trump exaggerated the damage to Fordow, and a leaker put himself at risk just to let the U.S. and world know that Iran still wielded an imminent nuclear threat, perhaps that would have been a righteous act. But the leaked report came well before a full assessment had been done and was replete with cautionary language. There was far, far less to this report than met the eye. Whether it was the leaker or Bertrand herself who hid this important context matters little. It’s up to the press to put such information into proper perspective.

Did anyone at CNN say, “Hey, you know, there could be a political agenda behind this, and we might not be getting the whole story?” It sure doesn’t seem like it.

CNN claims that they said from the start that the report was low confidence, but Media Research Center has the receipts. Bertrand’s initial reporting does not say anything about  “low confidence.” Either her trusty sources left that part out, or she was lying by omission.

For days after that, CNN ran with this story, with every show leading with the blockbuster leak that is proving to be politically motivated nonsense.

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that CNN and outlets of its ilk are not going to change or reform. The Trump administration can sue them all they want, as it is threatening to do to CNN and The New York Times in this case, but that’s not the answer.

When it comes to anti-Trump stories, CNN is like a heroin addict, and these deep-state leakers are their connection, providing endless fixes of short-term bliss that, in the long run, have cratered the network’s credibility.

The answer is to punish the leakers. The answer is to return to the original transaction, which was, we will take your leak seriously because you are risking jail to reveal it. Without the jail part, the whole concept falls to pieces. Leaks can simply be political hits, with no fingerprints.

Whoever the deep-state Trump haters are who leaked this report damaged Trump’s ability to negotiate with Iran and potentially put methods and sources of intelligence at risk by citing signals intelligence.

For these reasons alone, the leakers, who were in positions of knowledge and trust, need to be punished. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was right this week when she said they “should go to jail.”

When it comes to anti-Trump stories, CNN is like a heroin addict, and these deep-state leakers are their connection, providing endless fixes of short-term bliss that, in the long run, have cratered the network’s credibility.

It’s not enough to punish the addict. We have to punish the dealers who peddle half-truths to undermine the president of the United States.

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Put simply, it’s time to make secret information classified again. To end this game of deep state officials playing footsie with the liberal media, we need Natasha Bertrand to start hearing from her sources, “Sorry, I’m not going to jail for this.”

Donald Trump ran, and twice won, on a promise to drain the swamp, to make the DC bureaucracy more efficient and effective. Is it any wonder when the targets of this effort go running to the news media to undermine his administration?

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This time the message must be loud and clear to the leakers that if you break the law you are going to jail, it doesn’t matter how much you hate Donald Trump or how righteous you believe that hatred is.

Once that is understood, then maybe, just maybe, the deep state to fake news misinformation pipeline can once and for all be destroyed.

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