White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday
cast aside the playbook of cut-and-dry condemnations of national security leaks
and instead framed his response along political lines.
After expressing concern
about Wikileaks' release of documents allegedly revealing CIA surveillance
techniques, Spicer quickly muddled his message.
He connected the latest
WikiLeaks document dump to surveillance efforts under the Obama administration,
days after President Donald Trump's leveled his unsubstantiated claim that
President Barack Obama tapped the GOP candidate's phones during the 2016
campaign.
And then he took to
arguing forcefully that there was a "double standard" when it comes
to the level of outrage elicited by different leaks.
'I love Wikileaks'
The White House has
repeatedly argued that too much public and political attention has been devoted
to the investigation into contacts between Trump campaign officials and
suspected Russian operatives and not enough to the leaks of that confidential
information.
"It's interesting how
there's sort of a double standard with when the leaks occur, how much outrage
there is," he said.
Spicer's comments came as
he relayed Trump's "concern" about the leaks and said Americans
should be "outraged" by the release of classified information.
"This is the kind of
disclosure that undermines our country, our security and our
well-being,"Spicer said.
Spicer's claims Wednesday
came as he faced questions about a double standard on the President's part in
condemning this leak while he praised WikiLeaks' publication of emails related
to his rival Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.
"I love
WikiLeaks!" Trump proclaimed on the stump last year as he took to reading
before crowds of cheering supporters hacked emails that the site released.
Spicer said Wednesday that
there is a "massive, massive difference" between the two disclosures.
"There is a big
difference between disclosing Podesta -- John Podesta's Gmail accounts about a
back-and-forth and his undermining of Hillary Clinton and his thoughts on her
on a personal nature, and the leaking of classified information," Spicer
said.
During the campaign, Trump
repeatedly lauded WikiLeaks for releasing emails hacked from Clinton campaign
chairman John Podesta's email account, several of which portrayed Clinton in an
unfavorable light. The US intelligence community concluded those emails were hacked
and released to WikiLeaks by Russian sources as part of a campaign to hurt
Clinton.
But Trump's comments about
hacking when he was on the campaign trail weren't limited to praising of
WikiLeaks, which has engaged in publishing classified national security
information since 2006, and its dump of Clinton emails.
Trump also applauded the
hack of the Democratic National Committee and downplayed the seriousness of the
various election-related hacks, at one point urging Russia to find and release
the 33,000 emails allegedly deleted from the private email server Clinton used
while secretary of state.'
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