Questions and panelists and well also mod erators are students. And so i wanted to make is sure that we had at least one faculty member at georgetown who had the respect of the students and was known by the students and as somebody who is interested in furthering the dialogue of this sort. And all signs pointed to ellen gorman who is a lecturer in the english department, and particularly interest ed ed in pentagon papers for the cultural significance and what they have told us about the evolution of Democratic Society in this k country. Sole ellen, graciously agreed to be the moderator of this panel, and so i will tirnt over to her now. Thank you, ellen. Thank you very much. This is an exciting opportunity to get to talk to some imminent people right now about what is going on. The title of this panel is what will happen next . I am looking forward to hearing what they believe will happen next with are regard not only to the legacy of the pentagon papers, but to the last few week, and what is going on in terms of what i see as changing definitions of the term leak and the idea of Civil Servants, different segments of society, seeing themselves as bullworks against some kind of encroachment of a lack of understanding of facts or news or what the truth is. I think that one quote that is really informative coming from sandys brook which we have all been referring to this morning in the decision of the judge about the decision of the pentagon papers and whether or not the New York Times would be allowed to publish them. Hes made this the following declaration. The security of the nation is not at the ramparts alone, and security also lies in the value of the free institutions. A cantankerous press, yubiquitos press must be used to serve the right of the people to nknow. These are troubled times. I think that we could say that the same is true now. There is no greater safety valve that he claimed for discontent and cynicism about the affairs of government than the freedoms of expression many in any form. This has been the genius of our institutions throughout our history. It is one of the market traits of our National Life that distinguishes us from the other nations under different forms of government, and that is certainly one issue that i would like to talk with susan, pat and marty about is the differences of the American Media and government and how these things play out here. I think that judge finds words help us to lead oin discussion. We have marty baron here who is the executive editor of the Washington Post who has there since 2012 and before the post he was the editor of the boston globe where he directed an investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church which was resulted into a Pulitzer Prize and also in a film called spotlight which many of you have seen. Hes also a recent recipient of the hitchens award for author or journalist whose work reflects freedom of expression, and depth of intellect and the willingness to his profession without personal regard. That is an audacious prize, and im so excited to have him here. And susan h hennessey is the n general counsel of the fair ila institu institute, and prior to joining brookings she was in the office of the council of the nsa and a recent article she wrote for the law fair log is called the laws of leaks and it is an examination of the laws of leaks and how the white house might seek to investigate them and how we might see them as a remedy in terms of the information with regard to failings and potential failings of the government and the nature of the leak investigations and the enforcement mean for the government and the people in general. We also have pat rowan who is a pa partner at the law firm of mcguire and woods where he focuses on international and National Security matters. Before joining mcguire woods, he was for 18 years with the department of justice. During his time there, he served as assistant attorney jgenerale for National Security where where he managed d. O. J. s National Security cases and prosecutions and handled the oversight of all of the espionage investigations am mopg other things n. November of 2016, he was also 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 we will talk at the end a little bit more about the legacy of the leaks, and the pentagon papers that we heard danielle elsberg last night speak at length about the process that he went through in terms of providing the information no press, and his can discussions with the various 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 that this information needed to be known for the American People. My first question is for marty. The post has been as we mentioned in the first panel sort of one of the Major Players right now in terms of are reporting about what is going on, and this sort of the continued question about what a leak is and whether it is more as bobword said in the last panel kind of the vigorous reporting that the elicits information as opposed to the actual leak and a dump or Something Like that brought to the paper and i think that it is interesting to think about the way that plethora of information that is coming out now is processed. How does the post sort through not only the amount of informatio information, but also what do people who give information to the post expect will be the result do you think . If you have any notion of that, id love to hear. Well, first of all, i would love to say that there is not a plethora and it is limited what is released and we would have welcomed more. So, i think that there is a lot more to be known and if people have more to reveal, wed certainly be receptive to receiving it, and so it is excite limited. You know, if leaks, and that is a broad term. It can apply to a lot of things, and i think that in most instances as in the recent instances of the last several week, and you know, the reporters have spent their careers developing sources and cultivating them and talking to them and building up confidence and these are the beat reporters and people on our staff who have covered intelligence for a long period of time, and other people who have covered Justice Department, Law Enforcement of every time and they have been able to sort of as a result of the cultivating the sources, able to gather information. And in other instances, things are dropped in our lap, and we have on the website actually a big welcome sign for people to send us stuff, and we have provided all sorts of ways that they can send it to us with the what we hope is a high degree of con fi d confidentiality. And perhaps in the most well known case, obviously Edward Snowden provided documents to us and guardian and ultimately to other publications that were highly classified and he initiated that effort even though he was not familiar initially with Glenn Greenwald or bart geldman and e introduced to them by a filmmaker Barbara Portis and that is an instance when somebody came forward to us, and we then looked through the documents. Why do people provide the information . Well, there is a variety of reasons. Obvious obviously, in the case of snowden, he felt that the government had gone to the extreme in terms of amount of surveillance of individuals both within this country, and as well as in other countries, and that that motivated him. There are other people who may feel aggrieved for one reason or another. A and the reason that people flaek the realmle of intelligence is probably the similar of other realms, and that they just have some reason for doing so, and it could be a broad range of reasons for doing, so and we want to know what the motive is, and ultimately, we want to evaluate the information in its own ri t right. And david sanger from the New York Times in the last panel talked about the drop box that the times has now offered to people, and he indicated that there was a higher percentage of the valuable information than he thought that there would be. He thought 99 just noninformation, but he sees more like 10 now of usable quantifiable information. They have something similar to us. I dont know what the volume s and i dont look at it myself, but we do have people who review it. It is circulated to the appropriate people to examine, and it is generally a small percentage that is worthy of a publication and our efforts. I dont know what that percentage would be. Even if it is wone percent, we will take it. And do you have is Something Like that . We do. It is right there on the home page of the website and when you click through, it offers about eight different ways that you can send us information. Confidentially. Great. There is always the mail, too, by the way. Old school. That is how the New York Times was able to get a portion of Donald Trumps taxes, ordinary mail, and pretty secure actually. So. Sounds good. Many routes to follow. Susan and pat, can you walk us through the roots of how this might play out in terms of repercussions of someone who decides to provide information to somebody like the Washington Post or the New York Times, and is there a procedure with they immediate to be counseled by the attorneys and i know that elsberg talked about that last night that he went to the attorney and talked about the repercussions might be, and can you see that things have changed in terms of the for instance the espionage act how that might be or that things now in the digital age have made prosecution fundamentally different . Harsher . I know that you have mentioned in the article that you can see antileak prosecution is knotting being something that more likely to happen now. Go ahead. And so i think that one thing that is sort of important to separate out is the rhetoric and the way that the government would talk about leaks and classified information, and what happens in practice, and we can site from both sides of the aisle, and terms of incredibly irresponsibili irresponsibility, and certainly obama took hits offit, and george bush over the hits of the classification information and always this righteous indignation of how we discuss the leak s s in chul sort of th ecosystem of the federal government in general and not just classified information, but the larger body of the sensitive private information which is not meant for the public disclosure, but it is a more nuanced ecosystem, right, and so we know that the government has authorized the leaks and quasi authorized leaks and dumped primary materials, and so sort of whenever we are thinking about what are repercussions might look like, and it is important to put them in the context of understanding where where on the spectrum we fall so that some of the most recent prosecutions related to leaks was general cartwright who had, who has plead guilty and then pardoned by president obama for confirming a piece of information. That is actually a quasi authorized. He was authorize ed d to have t conversation with the journalist and maybe he said something that he should havent or didnt intend to, and ultimately prosecuted or plead guilty to lying to federal agents, and so this is, you know, pretty good demonstration of the complexity of the space, and it is not just somebody going rogue, but it is not somebody blowing the whistle, and some people have conflict s wi conflicts with the press, because they are trying to enhance National Security and publication has a story that they want to run with it, and they may need additional context that they want to have faurly and accurately or to convey certain pieces of information that should not be brought to the public. So it is a serious obligation, and there are consequences for having unauthorized contact with the media, and especially in the media, but it is have you leaked information or not, and there is lots and lots of moving pieces in this space. And the legal repercussions would var every fit is a goodwill leak or the sanctioned leak or something that is kind of a rogue action from civil r servant, and all of these would result in different note ufications. Well, it is not necessarily an intentbase and did you va good leak or the bad leak, but it is more in temperatures of not possible to investigate everything, and not everybody faces the same koconsequence, a putting them in the appropriate context and it is really levels of mitigation, and so, there is mitigation and once the line has been crossed and the agency does referral for the investigation, and what we usually end up seeing in terms of the actual punishment is not necessarily for the republican of dischose sure, but the mitigating factors that occur afterwards and sort of hiding it afterwards like the coverup of a crime. And are you willing to conclude what you will see in terms of the potential changes of the trumps admin station of potential leaks, and there is a discussion can earlier about the obamas administrations sort of allying of the not wanting to talk to the reporters themselves in some cases. Do you see that changes . Well, just, you mention ed that i was on a landing team for doj and i have no idea what the Trump Administration wants to do with that leak, so i dont want you to misunderstand, but as a general matter, every administration has struggled with it and not just the Obama Administration who said the leaker and not the media outlet who received the information and that is why the challenges of leak investigations is that you have this person, the reporterer out there that is this remarkable source of information about where they got the leak from, but the investigation works around that person. That was true in the Obama Administration, and even before that, and it is a longstanding policy that d. O. J. Adopted and in the beginning, because they did not want to suffer a statute that might encroach upon the investigative prerogative and put in place a policy that requires the asa agents in justice to come to get a approval from the attorney general before they subpoena a reporter e. That policy is part of why we have seen so few leak inv investigation over the years. It is a very real check on the investigative zeal of the agent or the prosecutor the go after the reporter who they see as having all of the information. I dont think that it will change. Within that process, there is a judgment call that the attorney general makes where they dont have much in the way of c constraints except for the sense of how tole balance National Security versus freedom of the pre press. And so, could an individual attorney general strike that balance different from another . I am shure they could, but ther is a long sort of the institutional tradition there of taking that seriously, and i would not expect that to be discarded very easily. And bob woodward seemed to be concerned about the changing of the attitudes towards repotter, and marty, have you at the post thought about this as well in the fact that it might inhibit some reporting to the extent that there could be some kind of challenge or that they would be in fear of . Well, you know, i have no idea what the trump adm administration might do in the case of the leak investigation whether they will see if they only go after or try the go after the leaker or if rereporters and i mean, i think that i hope that it is not coming after the what would certainly be my strong preference not to come after the reporter, and i dont believe they should. You know, there is also issues of how justice pursues such an investigation. The Obama Administration put in some guidelines about, you know, what sort of the rules that would govern subpoenas of rep t reporters phone calls and i would think they would continue to follow those guidelines with the extent of conversations with the media organizations, arising out of the investigations of leaks are received by james rose een of fox, and jim risen of the New York Times and several others and the a. P. And so, but when attorney general sessions was going through the confirmation hearings he was asked about that and he kind of ducked the question, and he said that he had not really studied it, and he didnt know, so we dont have an answer on that, and as to how we would do the reporting, we would continue the way we always have. I dont think that anybody at the certainly the post or the major media organizations is going to be feeling intimidated by any way. We feel that we have a job to do and that we will continue to do that job, and everybody comes in ev everyday with the idea to do the job the way they do it. And they did it previously no matter the pronouncements are that come out of the administration or the president. Just to follow up, i think that one reason for the sense of anxiety and despite the fact that we have not seen anything from the administration beyond somer rant statements here and there is that the protections are normative and not legal and there is not a statute that says this is what the Justice Department can and cannot do. There is a great deal of discretion, and they cant investigate it if they wanted to, and the norm of not only prioritizing political opponents or embarrassing leaks, the Justice Department rules which are, you know, discussionary and they could theoretically alter them, and so the concern of matching that the sense of the vulnerability, because there is not sort of the clear lines here, and paired with aN Administration who is priding on breaking the norms and not having as much are respect for those institutional sort of the independent and norms that we rely on at lot. So that is leading to a little bit of the just a feeling of anxiety and we dont yet know if it is justified or no