During Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she would continue to use polygraph tests to track down so-called “leakers” who were revealing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation efforts.
Partial transcript as follows:
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you. You said that you have found leakers within DHS and you’re going to prosecute them.
Back on February 9, you tweeted: “The FBI is so corrupt.We will work with any and every agency to stop leaks.”
Were you wrong then to blame the FBI if the leaks were from within DHS?
NOEM: No, I think there’s leakers all over throughout this government. I think that everybody needs to be…
BRENNAN: What did they leak?
NOEM: I think these — in DHS specifically, these two were leaking our enforcement operations that we had planned and were going to conduct in several cities and exposed law enforcement to vulnerabilities, to those ops being jeopardized, to where their lives would be in danger.
So they will be prosecuted, and they could face up to 10 years in federal prison because they did that. Anyone who is leaking information outside of — of how something is planned for the safety of those law enforcement officers needs to be held accountable for that.
BRENNAN: And you’re going to continue these polygraphing…
NOEM: Absolutely.
BRENNAN: … of employees?
NOEM: The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive. And I plan to use every single one of them to make sure that we’re following the law, that we are following the procedures in place to keep people safe, and that we’re making sure we’re following through on what President Trump has promised, that he’s going to make America safe again.
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