Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel attend a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on March 26. (Demetrius Freeman/Washington Post)
National security agencies across the Trump administration are ramping up investigations into alleged leaks to the news media, in some cases using polygraph tests that current and former officials say are creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
At FBI Director Kash Patel’s direction, the bureau in recent weeks has begun administering polygraph tests to identify the source of information leaks, an FBI spokesperson said. The new use of polygraphs at the bureau, which are commonly known as “lie detector” tests, has not been previously reported.
“The seriousness of the specific leaks in question precipitated the polygraphs, as they involved potential damage to security protocols at the bureau,” said the spokesperson, who declined to elaborate.
The ramp-up has been bolstered by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s new legal guidelines that allow the Justice Department to subpoena reporters’ personal communications and broaden the scope of potential criminal prosecution to leaks of not just classified material, but also “privileged and other sensitive” information that the administration says is “designed to sow chaos and distrust” in the government.
But current and former officials note that the broader scope could include information that is simply embarrassing or seen as undermining the administration’s views.
“People are trying to keep their heads down,” said one former FBI field office head, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “Morale’s in the toilet. … When you see people who are being investigated, or names [of agents who worked on Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot cases] being passed over to the DOJ, it’s what the f---?”
At the Pentagon, embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened the use of polygraphs, according to current and former officials, and has demanded that some senior department officials be administered lie detector exams, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The sense of dread is palpable. Some officials who have left the government under a buyout and might normally feel less constrained about talking to the news media are refusing to speak while they are officially still on the payroll. Even contractors with security clearances say they can’t take any chances in case they are asked in their next polygraph test whether they have had contact with journalists.
“It’s a toxic environment,” said one official with a top-secret clearance. “First, you’ve got the insecurity of not knowing whether you’re going to get fired or not. Then there’s the witch hunt to find the whistleblowers who are exposing the ineptitude and bad management of agencies. They’re trying to silence those who do not follow the party line.”
This official and others pointed to the firing of Gen. Timothy Haugh, who until earlier this month led the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, as well as the dismissals and early retirements of dozens of experienced staffers at the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, which the employees warn will leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian hackers.
Haugh, whose firing was not accompanied by any explanation, was dismissed by President Donald Trump for being “disloyal,” according to Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who urged Trump - in a highly unusual White House meeting - to remove him. The move drew outrage from Democratic lawmakers.
“This is pretty astounding, that the president has chosen to dismiss somebody as capable in such an important position as General Haugh with the threats being as they are,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pennsylvania) said in an interview this month.
In recent weeks, the Pentagon has been in turmoil over the forced departures of several of Hegseth’s top aides, allegedly over leaks to the news media that displeased the secretary and that involved “sensitive communications” with senior defense officials.
The combination of summary dismissals, polygraph threats and leak prosecutions has rattled the workforce. “People are terrified,” said one former senior intelligence community lawyer who was involved in leak investigations under the Obama administration.
“The difference today is they are not looking only for people leaking classified information,” said the former official. “They are looking for people leaking negative information, which is not necessarily against the law,” he said, referring to information that the administration sees as embarrassing or that challenges its version of events.
At the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said one former official, dozens of veteran staffers - many disenchanted with the change in climate - recently left the agency, taking either a buyout or early retirement.
“There’s definitely a culture of fear that there will be personal retribution if they’re seen as in any way shining a light on, or sharing details about, what’s happening in the organization - not even sharing classified information,” the former official said.
One defense official said that amid the push to ferret out leaks and disloyalty, the four-star generals he works with have begun parroting Hegseth’s language - constantly talking about the need to be patriotic warfighters, for example. “They are using the right words so they don’t get fired,” said the official.
“In the past, candor was valued as a positive trait among military leaders,” a second defense official said. “Today, people no longer feel safe having an opinion that might be misconstrued as going against the [defense secretary] or the [president].”
This month, Loomer openly urged the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to “polygraph every single intelligence employee,” especially those who served under the Biden administration, in order to “clean house” of leakers.
“Why are we waiting for something bad to happen?” Loomer posted on X.
Polygraph testing is required at large intelligence agencies for establishing eligibility for employment and continued access to classified materials. Such testing takes place generally every five years.
But polygraphs are not lie detectors, said Steven Aftergood, an expert on intelligence policy formerly with the Federation of American Scientists. “They are stress detectors. If for any reason the questions being posed are upsetting to an individual, your pulse might accelerate even if you’ve done nothing wrong. So polygraphs do not measure truth or falsity. They measure stress.”
Aftergood said they are prone to false positives and negatives, noting that former CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames famously passed two polygraph tests while spying for the Soviet Union. Ames is serving a life sentence in prison.
Nonetheless, last month the Department of Homeland Security began performing polygraph tests on employees to suss out who might be leaking to the news media information about immigration operations, NBC News reported. Dozens of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees have been given lie detector tests, CNN reported this month.
Veteran intelligence and national security officials have lived through periodic clampdowns on leaks: The Obama administration brought more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined. And during the first Trump administration, which was one of the leakiest in modern history, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned that the “culture of leaking must stop.”
But none of those instances compares to the generalized sense of dread and frustration that the Trump administration is creating in agencies from the ODNI to the FBI to the Defense Department, a number of officials and employees said.
“The agency heads are thin-skinned and fearful of adverse news coverage,” Aftergood said. “So, far from demonstrating strength, they are displaying political weakness.”
He pointed to Bondi’s memo that used as criteria for potential prosecution disclosures of information that “undermine President Trump’s policies.”
That presumes that the White House’s every utterance is “sacrosanct,” Aftergood said. “It’s like saying dissent will not be tolerated. It is both absurd and offensive.”
A second former intelligence official said colleagues who have taken early retirement offers have confided they’re leery of attending social gatherings such as farewell parties for fear of being monitored by private investigators. “They’re very anxious,” the former official said, and more guarded in what they say.
The chilling effect on the intelligence community is particularly disturbing, current and former officials said. “The culture of independence is so important,” said a third former intelligence official. “If you don’t have an intelligence community that is able to challenge the prevailing thought, then you are undermining the ability of the government to think critically on some of the most important issues.”
The irony is that CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to make the agency less risk-averse, yet “by creating this atmosphere of fear, they’re actually making people more risk-averse,” the former official said.
The former official noted the emails from leadership that directed employees to report on colleagues who were engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion activities. “They did this in the Soviet Union,” the former official said. Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan contributed to this report.
