GOP lawmaker: Intelligence community leaks ‘have to stop’

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) in an interview broadcast Sunday slammed the intelligence community for information leaked to U.S. newspapers, saying the leaks “have to stop.”

“We cannot have trust in an intelligence community where their main method of communicating is under the masthead of the Washington Post and the New York Times,” Turner said during an interview with John Catsimatidis on 970 AM in New York.

“These leaks have to stop. They are certainly undermining the credibility of the intelligence community.”

{mosads}The newspapers have both extensively covered Russia’s information campaign aimed at interfering in the U.S. presidential election.

The Post also broke the story that ultimately lead to the resignation of President Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Turner argued in the interview that Russia did not ultimately affect the results of the election.

“There are assessments by our intelligence community that Russia took actions or steps to affect the outcome of the election or certainly to cause doubt,” Turner said.

“But everyone agrees that Russia had no ability to affect the outcome, that the voting itself, that the outcome of the electorate, that people’s decisionmaking were all based on issues that were unrelated to any actions from Russia.”

The intelligence community in a declassified report released in January concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin called for an influence campaign aimed at helping Trump win the White House. The report notes that it did not assess the impact of Russia’s actions.