Saunders signaled that he wanted to add something, “Mr. President, as you know, I’ve been working on laying a trap inside the intelligence community to figure out who has been leaking classified intelligence to the media and potentially to our enemies. This has been an ongoing effort for the past five months, while I have had those three FBI agents working for me down in the basement. We’ve identified several leakers. Since we are cleaning house tomorrow, I believe it would be a great time to announce who the leakers are and have them publicly arrested and charged with treason.”
Everyone turned to Steve in a bit of shock. They knew he had been working on identifying who the leakers were, but they did not realize he had suspects yet. “How many leakers do we have?” asked the President, his left eyebrow raised.
“On the one hand, I feel some vindication that I might actually get some justice in this whole situation… but why in the world am I just now hearing about this?” wondered the President.
“Sir, just to back up a little — I had planned on telling you during our next one-on-one meeting, now that we have the evidence we need to charge them. I wanted to make sure the FBI agents had everything they would need to make an arrest. We also brought one DOJ lawyer into the mix to make sure she had everything she needed to secure a conviction. She informed me earlier this morning that she has everything needed, so we can make the arrests whenever we are ready. Now, as to the leakers… there are twelve leakers at the CIA, eight at the NSA, three inside the DIA, sixteen inside the DoD, eighteen inside the DOJ and nine at the FBI,” he said casually. Their mouths collectively dropped.
Ishaan was the first to speak. “Please tell me you have rock solid evidence on them, not conjecture, but rock-solid evidence.”
“As I said earlier, I’ve had my FBI team working with a DOJ lawyer to make sure everything is air tight on this one,” Steve replied, sounded almost irritated at being questioned. “We also have email, text and phone conversations of each one of them passing classified intelligence to a reporter or foreign intelligence agent. In the dragnet we setup, we also ensnared one Democratic Senator, two Democratic Congressmen, and one Republican Congressman.” He had a very smug and satisfied smile on his face.
Jonathan let out a soft whistle. “The question now is, do we charge the congressional members? If we do, do we have enough evidence to make it all stick?” he asked rhetorically.
Saunders replied, “We have them caught dead to rights. I do not see why we would not charge them with treason. The American people are sick and tired of politicians being held above the law and getting away with shady stuff like this. We should make an example of them all, and perp walk them in front of the cameras.”
Saunders continued before anyone else could jump in and add anything further, “There is one other major concern; one of the folks we identified as a leaker is currently working inside the Pentagon. We believe he is actually a deep cover SVR operative. We caught a text message that he sent to a known FSB agent operating in New York. The text gave the gist of the national security meeting where you decided that we would forcefully evict the Russians from the Ukraine if they did not withdraw. It was later that same day that the Russians launched their preemptive attack on us.”
The President and his other advisers were shocked at the news. “This would explain why we were caught off guard,” thought the President. “However, the military should have been able to handle the Russians’ attacks… and why didn’t the Director of the NSA bring this to my attention right away? Why am I hearing about it several days later from Saunders instead? Something is just not right with the intelligence community that they can’t identify high value information and get it to my office. No wonder Stephen wanted to fire the Director.”
Ishaan spoke up next. “This is incredible Steve. I am still not sure why the NSA did not bring this to us, but we will have to find out when we question the director about it tomorrow, now that we know. In the meantime, Mr. President, I think we should move forward with the arrests of the Congressional members who have betrayed our country. We cannot have them operating in their positions of power and influence while at the same time disclosing classified intelligence that is now being used against us by our enemies. People are dying because of their actions.”
Gates smiled at the thought of having them walked in front of the press while they were formally charged with treason. “OK, then here is what we are going to do. I want the traitors arrested first thing in the morning. We need to stop them from leaking information, especially that Russian agent. Then on Friday, I want the four Congressional leaders arrested and charged. At the same time, I want all of the firings of the government employees to take place across the spectrum. That will ensure the entire coverage over the weekend will be of the traitors within the government being arrested.”
Gates continued, “On Saturday, we will announce who will be taking over as the new commanders of the positions we just relieved, and publicize our new approach to the war in Europe.”
Ishaan jumped into the conversation, almost cutting the President off. “Mr. President, we do have one major thing that needs to be taken into consideration. While I agree with the firings, we are in the middle of a ground war with Russia. We still have important decisions that have to be made on what we are going to do next.”
Gates nodded. “I agree. I’m not about to lose more soldiers to incompetence. After the SACEUR is fired, I want to speak with the Deputy EUCOM Commander immediately. I want to know from him what the strategy is, along with his recommendations on what we should do next. I want him brought up to speed on what has transpired, and more importantly, I want his advice on what we should do in Europe to right the ship.”
The meeting continued for another hour as they dissected the various positions that would need to be backfilled quickly, and which ones could wait a few days or a week. It was going to be the largest shakeup of the government in history, but one that was much needed.
The Shake Up
It had been a rough morning, and the day had only started. The Press Secretary, Linda Wagner, had gotten the call late last night to come in extra early because there was going to be a major military shake-up of the situation unfolding in Europe.
When she got off the phone, her husband rolled over and asked, “Do you think America could lose the war with the Russians?”
It caught her off guard. “If my own husband, who knows more than the average American, thinks that the US could possibly lose the war, then what is the average person thinking?” she wondered.
She arrived at the office two hours early, to get ready for a staff briefing at 0500.
“Thank goodness, the kitchen crew brought in some strong coffee and breakfast foods. I’m starved,” she thought as she took her seat.
As Ishaan went over what had transpired last night, her mouth almost dropped to the floor. She knew there had been military failures; anyone with eyes had to see all the footage that the media was showing of the frontlines on a continuous loop. People were starting to lose their minds over how badly things were going. The military shake up did not seem like that big of a surprise. However, then they moved to the firings, and the congressional members who had been caught leaking classified intelligence to the media.