What Comes Next?

With the tentative identification of the "gossipblower," what should come next is disciplinary action. The Dems will undoubtedly cry "retaliation!" Now, retaliation against whistleblowers is illegal--supposedly--but the "gossipblower" has been determined not to be a whistleblower for purposes of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA). That won't stop the Dems from raising whatever sort of ruckus they possibly can to obfuscate the true issues and attempt to confuse the public. This seems to me to be a decision that really can't be ducked.

What's going here? My theory is that the NYT's leaking of enough information--at least apparently, at this point--to identify the "gossipblower" is designed precisely to trigger such a kerfuffle. To keep this thing going. But more than that.

Any administration can function effectively only when the president can trust his subordinates. I strongly suspect that the goal is to break that trust and, to the extent possible, disrupt the functioning of the Trump administration. If communications within the administration should be disrupted because of an inability for officials to trust one another, that goal could be accomplished.

The remedy could be--could be--to fight fake news with true news, via Declassification. It will need to be done carefully so as not to prejudice ongoing investigations. However, declassification is not the same as leaks. Official declassification should not be regarded as prejudicial in most circumstances. Determining the specifics will test AG Barr, but this may be one remedy. I offer this as a tentative suggestion.