Tulsi Gabbard warns leakers will be held accountable under Trump admin: 'These are crimes'

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, after criminally referring two alleged leakers to the Department of Justice, has warned that she will be holding leakers in the intelligence community accountable. 

Gabbard appeared on Fox and Friends, and said that leaks from the intelligence community have been happening for "a very long time" and added, "One of the reasons why the American people voted resoundingly for President Trump was to root out the kind of politicization and weaponization of intelligence that has really undermined the trust the American people have in the intelligence community [and] in the national security state."

She said that leaks also jeopardize national security in general, and then added, "We take this very seriously. It is illegal to leak classified information, and so what you're seeing here is me carrying out in the promise and the mandate the American people gave Trump, we conducted our own internal investigation. We have referred them now to the Department of Justice and the FBI for an official criminal investigation, because these are crimes and people need to be held accountable to put a stop to this."

Earlier this week, Gabbard announced on X that she would be referring two intelligence community leaks to the DOJ and that a third was incoming.

She added that the illegal leak included information that was sent to the Washington Post, then said, "These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS’ agenda. I look forward to working with the Justice Department and FBI to investigate, terminate and prosecute these criminals."

Last Friday, the Pentagon fired senior aides Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, as well as Darin Selnick after the DOJ opened an investigation into the leaks going to the news outlets, The Hill reported.

In a statement, the three fired officials claimed that "unnamed Pentagon officials ... slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."

Last month, Gabbard vowed that she would be “aggressively pursuing” those who leak information.