The Trump Administration and its relationship with the media. Speakers looked at National Security issues in light of recent leaks involving Government Officials and members of the administration. His is an hour and a half. Host good morning, were going to start up again. For those who are newly arrived, im Sanford Unger and ill just wait for people to find their seats. Im Sanford Unger, im glad to welcome you to a continuation of our symposium on the legacies of the pentagon papers. Some of you have been with us last last night and earlier. When putting Something Like this together, i wanted to make sure that we had at least one faculty member at georgetown who had the respect of students and was known by students and as somebody who is interested in furthering dialogue of this sort. And all signs pointed to ellen gorman, a lecturer in the English Department and is particularly interested in the pentagon painers for their cultural significance and what theyve told us about the evolution of Democratic Society in this country. So ellen graciously agreed to be a moderator of this panel and i will turn things over to her now. Thank you, ellen. Ms. Gorman thank you very much. This is an exciting opportunity to talk to some eminent people right now about whats going on. The title of the panel is what will happen next . And im looking forward to hearing what they think is going to happen next with regard not only to the legacy of the pentagon papers but to last two weeks and whats been going on. What i see are changing deaf anythings of the term leak and Different Levels of society see them as bull warks of some kind of encroachment of a lack of understanding facts or news or what the truth is. I think one quote thats really what ative comes from weve been referring to all this morning, the decision of the judge about the pentagon papers and whether or not the New York Times would be allowed to publish them, he made the following declaration. The security of the nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an on city nant press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve e values of the freedom of expression and the right of the people to know. These are troubled times. I think we could say refers to now. Theres no greater safety valve, he claimed, for discontent and cynicism about issues of golt and freedom of expression in any form. This has been the genius of our institutions throughout our history, it is one of the marked traits of our National Life that distinguish us from other nations under different forms of government. Thats certainly one issue that id like to talk with susan, pat, and marty about, the differences in the American Media and government and how these things play out here. I think the judges words will help us lead into our discussion. We have marty baron here, who is executive editor of the Washington Post. Hes been with the post since 2012. Before coming to the post, he was editor of the boston globe where he directed an investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church which was which resulted in a pulitzer a a song lso in called spotlight. Hes committed to Free Expression and enquirry, depth of intellect and willingness to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence. I think thats quite an audacious prize and im so excited to have him here. Susan hennessey is managing la fare and is now at the brookings institute. Prior to joining brookings, she was with the general counsel of the n. S. A. A recent article she wrote is called the law of leaks, i think its requisite reading for right now. Its an examination of the of the laws surrounding government leak, how the white house might seek to investigate them and how we might see them as a remedy in terms of information with regard to failings, potential failings in the government what the nature of leak investigations and enforcement means for the government and the people in general. We also have pat rowan, a rtner at a law firm where he focused on national and interNational Security matters. Before joining them he was for 18 years at the department of justice he served as assistant attorney general for National Security where he managed d. O. J. s National Security investigations and prosecutions and handled oversight of all espionage investigations among other things. In november of 2016 he was also named a member of the new administrations landing team for the department of justice. So thank you so much, all three of you, for coming. I look forward to hearing what you have to say and maybe well talk about the end a bit more bout the leaks, the pentagon papers, we heard daniel alsoburg last night speak at length about the process he went through in terms of providing information to the press. His discussions with members of the government about how this might play out. And his decision as a citizen and as a Civil Servant about why he felt this information needed to be known by the American People. Y first question is for marty. The post has been, as we mentioned in the first panel, one of the Major Players right now in terms of reporting about whats been going on, this sort of continued question about what a like is, whether it is more about as bob woodward said in the last panel, vigorous reporting that elists information as opposed to an actual leak, a document or Something Like that thats brought to the paper. I think that its interesting to ink about the way that the plethora of information thats coming out now is processed. How does the post sort through not only the amount of information but also what do people who give information to the post expect will be the result, do you think . If enough i if you have any notion of that. Mr. Baron i would say theres not a plethora, its quite limited whats being released. We would welcome more. So theres a lot more to be known and people have more to reveal, wed certainly be receptive to receiving it. Its actually quite limited. Leaks, its a very broad term. It can apply to a lot of different things. I think in most instances, as in the recent these recent instances over the last several weeks, reporters have spent theyre careers developing sources, cultivating them, talking to them, building up confidence, these are deep reporters, people on our staff that covered intelligence for a very long period of time. Other people who covered Justice Department, Law Enforcement of every type, and theyre able to sort of, as a result of cultivating these sources theyve been able to gather information. In other instances, things were dropped in our lap. We have on our website, actually a big welcome sign to people to send us stuff. We provide all sorts of ways they can send it to us with what we hope is a high degree of confidentiality. In the perhaps most well known recent case, obviously edward snow den provided a huge volume of documents to us and to the forwardian and ultimately to some other publications. That were highly classified. And he initiated that effort even though he was not familiar he ially with glen or mark, was introduced to them by a filmmaker and so that was an instance where Somebody Just came forward to us. And we then looked through those documents. Why do people drop this information . Theres a variety of reasons. In the case of snow den he says he felt the of snowden, he felt the government had gone to an extreme on surveillance on individuals in this country and other countries and that motivated him. There are other people who may feel aggrieved for one reason or another. A lot of people leak, the reason people leak in the rem of intelligence is probably similar to the reason they leak in other rems, they just have some realms, they just have some reason for doing. So it could range, there could be a broad range of reasons for doing. So we dont we want to know what the motive is, but ultimately want to evaluate the information in its own right. Ms. Gorman the representative of the New York Times talked about a drop box that the times offers to people he indicated that there was a higher percentage of valuable information than he thought there would be. He said he thought it would be 99 just noninformation but he sees more, like 10 now of usable, quantity final information. Mr. Baron they have something similar to us. I dont know what the volume is, i dent look at it myself. We have people that review it, its circulated to the appropriate people to examine. Its generally a small percentage thats worthy of publication and our efforts and i dont know what that percentage would be. But even if its 1 , well take t. Mr. Baron you have Something Like that . Mr. Baron we ms. Gorman you have Something Like that . Mr. Baron we do. If you look at our website, its right there, you can click theres here and information about how to do it. And theres mail too, thats how the times was able to get a portion of Donald Trumps taxes, the mail. Pretty secure. Ms. Gorman susan and pat, can you walk us through the roots of how this might play out in terms of repercussions for someone who decides to provide information to Something Like the Washington Post or New York Times, is there a procedure where they need to be sort of counseled by attorneys . I know they talked about that last night, he went to an attorney and asked about what the repercussions might be, can you see that things have changed for instance, or that things now in the digital age have made prosecutions fundamentally different . Harsher or not, i know in the article you mentioned that you dont see you see antileak prosecutions not being something that are more likely to happen now. Ms. Hennessey i think one thing thats important to separate out is the rhetoric, the way the government talks about leaks and what happens in practice. We see it from both sides of the aisle, very strong terms, incredible irresponsibility, obama took a lot of hits for it, certainly george w. Bush took very strong criticism over the protection of classified information. And theres always been this sort of, you know this righteous indignation in terms of how we discuss leaks in the public. The actual ecosystem of the federal government in general and not just classified information but sort of that larger body of sensitive, private information thats not meant for public disclosure, the more nuanced ecosystem, right. So we know that the government, there is authorized leaks. There are quasiauthorized leaks. There are people like snowden who dump a lot of source material. We want to at least think about what repercussions might look like. Its important to sort of put them in the context of understanding where on the spectrum, and also one of the most recent prosecutions related to leaks is actually general cartwright. Who had pled guilty and has since been pardoned by president obama for confirming a piece of information. That actually was a sort of quasiauthorized thing, he was authorized to have the conversation with the journalist, maybe said something he shouldnt have or didnt intend to. Then ultimately was prosecuted or pled guilty to a charge on lying to federal agents. And so this is, i think thats its a pretty good demonstration of the complexity of this space, its not just somebody, you know, going rogue. Its not necessarily somebody blowing the whistle. Some people have con contacts because theyre tiing to enhance National Security. A publication has a story they want to run with it, they might need additional context in order to present it fairly and accurately or in order to be convinced that certain peegs pieces of information shouldnt be brought to the public. So certainly its a very serious obligation. There are conditions quenses for having unauthorized contacts with the media, especially in the Intelligence Community, but its a little bit more complex than just, you know, have you leaked information or have you not leaked information . Theres lots and lots of moving pieces in this space. Ms. Gorman obviously the legal repercussions would vary. If its a good will leak or sanctioned leak or something thats kind of a rogue action from a Civil Servant, all of these would have different kinds of ramifications . Ms. Hennessey i dont think its necessarily intent based, did you have a good leak or a bad leak. Its not possible to investigate everything. Not everyone faces the same types of consequences. Just these, putting them in their appropriate context and its really leveled the mitigation, right so once the line has been crossed, agency does do a referral for investigation. What we usually end up seeing in terms of actual punishment is not necessarily for the disclosure of information on the first instance but for additional aggravating factors that occur afterwards like trying to hide it. Like the coverup being worse than the crime. Ms. Gorman would you be willing to include what you see as changes in term os they have Trump Administrations response to leaks . I know there was a discussion earlier about the Obama Administration sort of a line of not wanting to prosecute reporters themselves in some cases. Do you see that changing . Mr. Rowan you mentioned i was on the landing team for d. O. J. I have no idea what the Trump Administration wants to do about leaks so i dont want you all to misunderstand. I think as a general matter, every administration has struggled with this and its not just the Obama Administration that set out and said, look, our focus will be on the leaker, not the media outlet that received the information. And thats one of the challenges of leak investigations is that you have this person, the reporter out there, that is d this remarkable source of information about where they got their leak from but the investigation works around that person. And that was true in the Obama Administration and before that. Its a a longstanding policy that d. O. J. Adopted i think at the beginning because they didnt want to suffer a statute that might encroach upon their investigative prerogative so they put in place a policy that requires the ausas to come to main justice and get approval from the attorney general before hey subpoena a reporter. And that policy is part of why we have seen so few leak investigations over the years. Nd its a very real check on e investigative zeal of an agent or prosecutor going after a reporter who they see as having all the information. I dont think that will change. Within that process, there is a judgment call that the attorney general makes. Where they dont have much in the way of constraints except a sense of how to balance National Security versus freedom of the press. And so, could an individual attorney general strike that balance differently than another one . Im sure they could but theres a long sort of institutional tradition there of taking that very seriously and i wouldnt expect that to be discarded very easily. Ms. Gorman woodward seemed particularly concerned about attitudes changing toward reporters. I dont know, marty, if you have thought about this as well but the idea that that might inhibit some reporting to the extent that they feel that there could be some kind of challenge or that they would be in fear of . Mr. Baron i have no idea what the Trump Administration might do in the case of a leak investigation, whether they well see if they only go after, try to go after the leaker or try to go after the reporters. I think we will have to wait and see. I hope theyre not coming after, would certainly be my strong preference that they not come after reporters and i dont think that they should. You know, theres also there are also issues about how justice pursues such an investigation. The Obama Administration put in some guidelines about, you know, what sort of rules that would govern subpoenas of reporters phone calls and things of that sort. I would hope that the administration would continue to follow those guidelines, which were the result of some extensive conversations with media organizations arising out of their investigations of leaks received by james rosen of fox, jim of New York Times and several others and the a. P. And so but you know, when attorney general sessions was going through confirmation hearings, he was asked about that an he kind of ducked the question and said he hadnt really studied it and he didnt really know. So we dont have an answer on that. As to how we would do reporting, i think wed continue to do the reporting the way we always have. I dont think anybody, certainly at the post or other major media oorgnyizations feels intimidated in any way. We feel that we have a job to do, that were going to continue to do that job and everybody comes in every day with the idea that theyre just going to do their job the way they did it previously. No matter what the pronouncements are that come out of the administration or the president himself. Ms. Hennessey to follow up, one reason for the sense of anxiety, we havent seen anything from the administration beyond some errant statements here and there. But the protections here are normative, not legal. Theres not a statute that says this is what the Justice Department can do or cant do. Theres a great deal of discretion. They couldnt i