Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan is at the center of a federal investigation into the leak of confidential government information in late June that forced Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to call off a nationwide operation, three senior administration officials told the Washington Examiner.

Following the publishing of sensitive leaked law enforcement information on June 21, then-acting ICE Director Mark Morgan’s team followed department protocol and reported the incident to the ICE Joint Intake Center so they could investigate. JIC is an agency office that handles internal investigations of personnel misconduct, sexual abuse, staff neglect, or violations of responsibilities that may have contributed to such incidents.

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

“There is an ongoing investigation. An internal investigation has been launched,” one official said in a phone call Friday.

The investigation, which is not a criminal probe, is centered around the leader of the department’s 240,000 employees, as well as at least one aide, for possible involvement in the leak. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It's not clear if JIC has referred the matter to the DHS Office of the Inspector General.

“Any investigation into the malicious, unauthorized disclosure of the operations is completely justified. Any causal observer would logically deduce that McAleenan’s dodgy response and coy behavior warrant additional scrutiny,” a second senior official said late Thursday.

A third official said the department’s decision to pursue the investigation of the acting secretary in itself was “very troubling.”

“It’s worrisome that it took days for the acting secretary to acknowledge and then deny the allegations, and it’s telling that he didn’t call for the investigation in the first place. More than anything, it’s unfortunate that people are even having this discussion at all,” the official wrote in a text.

McAleenan was named by three senior administration officials and two former officials as the orchestrator of the leak, charging he wanted to sabotage ICE’s monthslong plan to find and arrest around 2,000 people who had been denied asylum and not left the country. McAleenan opposed the plan because of its potential to remove a parent from a household with children in it.

Three officials have claimed McAleenan ordered Morgan on two occasions in the two weeks leading up to the planned June 23 operation to not carry it out, orders that would have contradicted the White House’s support and approval. Morgan contacted the White House following McAleenan’s warning to try to carry it out, according to three current and two former senior administration officials.

“That’s our belief,” one official told the Washington Examiner in late June, when asked if McAleenan was behind the leak. “The secretary was not supportive from day one.”

The acting secretary, who was in El Paso Thursday to show mayors from southern border cities conditions of Border Patrol facilities, has not mentioned the investigation in the weeks since the leak.

He directly denied being the leaker during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham last week, but on Sunday dodged the same question when it was asked by ABC News host Martha Raddatz.

“I find it interesting that he demanded an investigation into the Border Patrol Facebook, but he didn’t demand an investigation into the leak. If he was innocent of this, why didn’t he?” said a senior former official.

The official was referring to a Facebook page on which border patrol agents made vulgar and derisive posts.

The planned raids in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston, were first reported by the Washington Post the day after its reporter traveled on a government plane with the acting secretary and aides to the border.

ICE is now planning to carry out raids nationwide this weekend, though it is not clear if the same people targeted in the canceled ones from June will be the focus of these new ones. The raids were reported Friday as having started earlier than expected.