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Pentagon announces investigation into leaks that could include lie detector tests

DHS polygraph tests to find leakers
Department of Homeland Security backs polygraph tests for suspected leakers 03:33

The Pentagon's intelligence and law enforcement arms are investigating what it says are leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs in the latest such inquiry by the Trump administration.

A memo late Friday from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's chief of staff Joe Kasper referred to "recent unauthorized disclosures" of such information but provided no details about alleged leaks.

Earlier in the day, President Trump rejected reports that adviser Elon Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China.

"If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure," then such information "will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution," according to the memo.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to use lie detector tests on employees to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.

In a video posted to social media, Noem wrote that the department had "identified two leakers of information here at the Department of Homeland Security who have been telling individuals about our operations and putting law enforcement lives in jeopardy. We plan to prosecute these two individuals and hold them accountable for what they've done." 

The polygraph tests at the DHS had been going on for several weeks, a spokesperson CBS News at the time. It wasn't clear how many employees had undergone them.

The results of that investigation have not yet been released.

The Justice Department on Friday announced an investigation into "the selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information" from intelligence agencies about Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang whose members in the U.S. are being targeted for removal by the Republican administration.

Leaks occur in every administration — and government officials can be the source — as a trial balloon to test how a potential policy decision will be received.

While polygraph exams are typically not admissible in court proceedings, they are frequently used by federal law enforcement agencies and for national security clearances. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled they were also inadmissible in military justice proceedings.

They are inadmissible because they are unreliable and often result in false positives, said George Maschke, a former Army interrogator and reserve intelligence officer who went on to found AntiPolygraph.org. Mashke failed a polygraph himself when applying to the FBI.

But they have been intermittently used since the 1990s to intimidate and scare sources from talking to reporters, Maschke said. A 1999 Pentagon report said it was expanding the program to use polygraphs on defense personnel "if classified information they had access to has been leaked."

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