Stephen Hess is senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution. His oft-quoted typology of why leakers leak is in his 1984 book, The Government/Press Connection: Press Officers and Their Offices.

James Reston, the late New York Times reporter who set the standard for Washington coverage in the second half of the 20th century, loved to remind his readers that “a government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.” President Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017; just four days later, he would first appreciate the accuracy of Reston’s adage.

At 8:41 a.m. on January 24, a clerk working for the chief of staff of the National Security Council, sent a draft executive order labeled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” to some NSC policy staff members, setting in motion the first top-level leak of the Trump administration as reported on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post.


Leaks are not particularly unusual. What is unusual is the Times’ disclosure of a good deal of the backstory behind this leak—and what that tells us about the likelihood that more leaks will come.

The proposal obtained by reporters called for a review of the Obama-era policy that shuttered secret detention prisons known as “black sites,” where interrogation teams tortured prisoners. Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo both strongly oppose reinstating the CIA’s torture methods. Although Trump has said that he “absolutely” thinks that torture is effective, he also said that he would defer to Mattis and Pompeo on the issue. Yet, as the Times reported, both denied having seen the draft that reporters had obtained, which “contained crossed-out phrases and typos,” and “was clearly not meant for public consumption.”

On January 25, White House press secretary Sean Spicer claimed the torture proposal was “not a White House document,” and that he had “no idea where it came from.” But three administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the Times that Spicer’s account was false; the “black site” order was circling the White House bureaucracy “in the same way that a flurry of other pending executive orders had been distributed for review.”

If the history of leaks teaches us one thing, it is that it’s easier to use them to generate opposition than it is to build support for a policy. And indeed, the White House’s instant disavowal suggests that whoever passed the document to reporters had succeeded in his or her aim. The story of this first leak—and the steady stream of leaks since—affirms that which has become obvious: This is a White House at war with itself.

And frustratingly for Trump—who raged on Friday morning about a CNN report on his chief of staff’s contacts with the FBI—there’s virtually nothing he can do to stop more leaks from happening. Firing his national security adviser, the object of much of the early leaking, won’t do it. At issue is Trump himself: As long as there are holdouts in the administration who disagree with him—and as long as the administration antagonizes its opponents and drives them into action—leaking will happen.

In fact, it is likely to get much worse.

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Leaking is an art form. It is best suited for quiet struggles between Washington players, the secretaries of defense and state at cross-purposes on an issue that need not be raised to the White House. But as Trump draws more and more policy into his world of tweets, especially in international relations, he will see more and more challenging leaks coming from bureaucrats at all levels of the permanent government. The more he talks, the more they will leak.

Once in government, Trump’s true believers were quick to rush campaign pledges into the pipeline, too fast, too unexamined, too misspelled. This is what the president wanted, and he is not a man with whom it is easy to disagree. Best for opposition to come in civilian clothes—leaking Trump’s “black site” plan to journalists was the best way to shoot it down.

For any president, this is not a condition to be wished for. Although it is said—and mostly true—that the majority of civil servants are liberals, the proper respect was always on display during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress—and thus, with the power to oversee and appropriate—Trump’s party label should actually be an asset. Trump’s problem in Washington is clearly of the “let-Trump-be-Trump” variety. From his inaugural speech on Day One, insulting the past presidents who sat behind him, the new president made it clear that he expected Washington to conform to his campaign style of governing. It hasn’t, and it likely won’t.

It will get worse for Trump when the budget and major pieces of legislation gain center stage. Even more than the executive branch, Capitol Hill is the natural home of the leak. It is a place where people love to talk. Thousands of congressional aides, chock full of real or extraneous information, enjoy the company of friendly journalists in comfortable watering holes. Good congressional investigations and inside knowledge make for titillating conversation. In a study I once did of Washington news, I was amazed to discover how much executive branch news filtered through Capitol Hill sources. It was often a three-step process: one, an executive-branch aide tells his or her friend, a congressional aide, something interesting; two, the congressional aide gains goodwill by passing it along to a friendly journalist; three, the executive-branch aide reads the story next day and wonders where the leak could have come from.

Equally daunting for the president will be when domestic civil servants see proposals to cut or eliminate their favored programs or, in some agencies, have to deal with Cabinet secretaries who oppose department policies. Scott Pruitt—whose own agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, has hardly disguised its revulsion at its new boss—comes to mind. Those who work in domestic agencies are not typically in the habit of leaking information; they fear for their jobs, and outside of those who work in press offices, don’t generally have regular contact with journalists. This too, I think will change measurably this year. After a month, it is already too late for the president to circle the agencies, showing his appreciation for those who work there, as even Richard Nixon did. Aside from his ill-fated trip to the CIA, Trump, it would seem, is not interested. Throughout the federal government, the leak will be the weapon of insurrection, and the president will often be its target.

So how does a Trump administration fight back? Calling the media “the enemy of the American people” is not a winning strategy—that will only encourage more dissent. A more inclusive policy process, in which opposing views are debated and given fair consideration, is important too. But it’s not clear whether Trump is interested in hearing other viewpoints. A more likely approach, perhaps, will be the route employed by his predecessor.

It may surprise Trump that Barack Obama was the president who came down hardest on whistle-blowers and leakers. Over the course of eight years, the Obama administration prosecuted eight individuals under the Espionage Act for disclosing sensitive information to the public; all previous presidencies combined had only brought three prosecutions against government leakers since the law was adopted in 1917.

Most painful was the government’s prosecution of New York Times reporter James Risen for not testifying against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was accused of giving Risen classified information about an unsuccessful CIA plan in Iran. Risen was subpoenaed by the Justice Department, and declined to reveal his sources, despite an appeals court decision ordering him to testify. The government ultimately dropped its case against Risen when it became clear that he would prefer to go to jail than disclose any information about his source. Sterling was later convicted without Risen’s testimony.

In September 2016, a coalition of journalism organizations wrote White House press secretary Josh Earnest to criticize the Obama administration’s press policy. “We are disappointed that, as we rapidly approach the election of a new president, we cannot use the Obama administration as an example of how it should be done,” they wrote.

Yet presidents learn that two can play the leaking game, although, by definition, a president’s leak is a plant. Administrations can always find a bent reporter or a friendly columnist more than happy to be helpful for a good story. In the long history of leaks, the ledger may ultimately balance out on whether a president is more leaked against than leaked for. In a famous leak case during the Reagan presidency in 1983, Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon quoted one White House official as saying, “There is no evidence that reporters were told anything we didn’t want them to know.”

Ultimately, though, Trump will have to accept that he does not—and cannot have—total control and total allegiance. “How do you cope with leaks?” President Reagan was once asked. “I’ve been told you don’t,” he replied, having already learned a lesson that Trump will soon internalize. “Everybody who has been around here for a while tells me it is just the nature of the place.”