The deputy attorney general says the Justice Department won't 'prosecute journalists for doing their jobs'

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein on Fox
(Image credit: Fox News/Screenshot)

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in an interview on Fox News Sunday that he is ready to "devote whatever resources are necessary" and prosecute "anybody who breaks the law" to get executive branch leaks under control.

"What we need to look at in every leak referral we get, we look at the facts and circumstances. What was the potential harm caused by the leak? What were the circumstances? That’s more important to us than who it is who is the leaker," he said. Still, Rosenstein cointinued, "if we identify somebody — no matter what their position is — if they violated the law and that case warrants prosecution, we'll prosecute it."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.