Sen. Rand Paul: Whoever leaked transcript of former NSA Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russian ambassador should “go to jail” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/irCZJZ2Ycq — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 19, 2017

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) expressed deep concern about government surveillance and the intelligence community leaking information to the press.

With discussion among conservatives shifting more and more towards the “deep state” in recent weeks, Paul told host George Stephanopoulos that it’s known that the Obama administration spied on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. He was referring to transcripts of pre-inauguration phone calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador being discussed with the press, as the envoy was being surveilled by the U.S. Those calls led to Flynn’s resignation.

“It is very, very important that whoever released that go to jail,” Paul said. “Because you cannot have members of the intelligence community listening to the most private and highly classified information and then releasing that to The New York Times.”

The Kentucky lawmaker also noted there are only be a handful of people who could have done this. Therefore, he wants them all to come in and “take lie detector tests” to get the the bottom of this all.

Paul appears to be parroting much of what we’ve heard from the Trump administration and other top Republicans, like House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, in terms of leaks to the media being the real issue at play. The president has taken to Twitter and utilized press conferences to rail against leaks.

Watch the clip above, via ABC News.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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