Attorney General Jeff Sessions has floated the idea of giving a polygraph test to every member of President Donald Trump’s national security staff in a leak investigation.
The extraordinary move would be part of an effort to hunt down the individual or individuals who leaked the transcript of President Trump’s phone calls to the heads of Mexico and Australia at the start of his term.
Both revelations proved embarrassing, as Trump pleaded with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to stop publicly opposing the wall, and vented to Australian President Malcolm Turnbull about an immigration agreement he had difficulty understanding.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has brought up a plan to give polygraph tests to every member of the National Security Staff to try to find out who leaked transcripts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders
The idea, reported by Axios, would be to require every member of the National Security Council to take a poligraph where they would get asked about the leak of the transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders.
The Washington Post reported the full transcripts of the Australia and Mexico calls in August.
According to the report, Sessions suspects someone on the NSC leaked the transcripts.
Early in the administration, Trump loyalists complained about a ‘deep state’ of advisors and specialists who burrowed into jobs in Washington who were intent on undermining Trump.
Lawmakers in both parties condemned the leak of the transcripts as a threatening breach, potentially providing advantageous ground from which to pursue a leak investigation, as opposed to leaks that were simply politically damaging to President Trump.
It was not clear whether Sessions ran the idea by National Security Advisor. H. R. McMaster
Sessions, whose position was considered to be extremely tenuous just weeks ago, has announced a tripling of leak investigations by the Justice Department.
In the leaked Post transcript published in early August, Trump vented to Turnbull about an Obama agreement to accept 1,250 people who tried to get to Australia by boat.
‘That is why they lost the election, because of stupid deals like this. You have brokered many a stupid deal in business and I respect you, but I guarantee that you broke many a stupid deal. This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible,’ Trump fumed.
One transcript featured a tense and awkward phone call with Australian Prime Minister Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
Another transcript featured Trump pleading with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto not to say Mexico won’t pay for the border wall
‘Mr. President, I think this will make you look like a man who stands by the commitments of the United States,’ countered Turnbull.
Trump repeatedly misstates the numbers in the agreement, at one point saying it was ‘like 5,000.’
If the leak investigation idea was meant to stay secret, it didn’t work. A source also confirmed it to CNN. The report said Sessions brought it up with White House staff, but it was ‘unclear’ if he had raised it with national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who has been overseeing replacement of aides linked to fired National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and ousted chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon.
In the Pena Nieto call, Trump pleads with his Mexican counterpart not to say publicly that Mexico won’t pay for the border wall.
‘We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that,’ said Trump, according to the transcript.
‘Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about,’ the president said.