David Corn Quotes

The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

I've long maintained during my 50-plus year career in intelligence that leaks endanger national security, they compromise sources, methods, and tradecraft, and they can put assets' lives at risk.

I do not agree with what Mr. Snowden did. He has damaged American international relations and compromised our national security. He leaked classified information and may have jeopardized human lives. That must be condemned.

Clinton set up an entire secret, unsecured communications structure outside of the government she was charged with serving at the highest level; she was the Secretary of State. Classified information that, in the wrong hands, could potentially bring harm to our country - and many in service to our country - was available to be appropriated.

Espionage is never a laughing matter. And in fact, this is not a political issue. I don't want to get this confused with the back and forth we might have about economic issues or anything else. This is a matter of national security now. And I find it very frightening that Donald Trump is encouraging any foreign power to breach a campaign and try to influence the outcome of the election.

I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of [CIA] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

The notion that -- which some people are trying to suggest, that by asking for the identity of an American person, that is the same as leaking it, is completely false. There's no equivalence between so-called unmasking and leaking.

The FBI demonstrated this by taking down the former head of the CIA [General David Petraeus] over classified information given to his mistress. Almost no-one is untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that no-one can resist us. But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation, so there's anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. We've published about 33,000 of Clinton's emails when she was Secretary of State.

As I have said in the past, revealing specific targets or successes of U.S. intelligence activities is not in the public interest.

Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI's counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States.

I'm not a spy, which is the real question

Of all those in the army close to the commander, none is more intimate than the secret agent.

There hasn't been a scandal this big at the C.I.A. since (CLASSIFIED) committed (CENSORED) to (REDACTED).

It's very, very difficult I think for us to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law.

If my son or your son handled classified information the way that Hillary Clinton did, they'd be court marshaled.

My peers are all in sensitive jobs - at the C.I.A., the National Security Council, working for the Department of Defense. They can't stand up for me in public.

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on television that it's a spy satellite?

I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified.

Last night when I was commenting on the FBI and the CIA, the sound went off for 27 minutes. I should have known better.

Many reasonable prosecutors have come to the conclusion that they would have brought such a case that Hillary Clinton was extremely careless in the handling of national security information. I would have brought such a case and I would have won such a case. And I've prosecuted cases like that in my years in the Justice Department.

I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.

It may affront the military-minded person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets.

[I will] totally dismantle every intelligence agency in this country piece by piece, nail by nail, brick by brick

The men and the women in the CIA, they do their job regardless of who is in the White House. Same for NSA. Same for FBI. These men and women are putting themselves in harm's way. Have to deal with difficult situations.