Kash Patel’s FBI is the latest national security agency to use polygraph tests to try to identify the sources of alleged “leaks” to the news media.
In recent weeks the FBI director has ordered the tests be used to investigate sensitive information that was shared with the press, creating a climate of fear and intimidation, The Washington Post reported.
“The seriousness of the specific leaks in question precipitated the polygraphs, as they involved potential damage to security protocols at the bureau,” an FBI spokesperson confirmed to the Post.
The spokesperson declined to elaborate on the nature of the leaks.
The polygraphs are part of an administration-wide effort to clamp down on dissent, sources told the Post.
Officials are reportedly using a combination of lie detector tests, leak prosecutions and summary dismissals to stop federal employees from sharing any information that might contradict President Donald Trump and his officials.
Cabinet members including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have reportedly become isolated and paranoid within their departments, leading them to administer polygraph tests to try to root out the sources of media leaks, according to Politico and the Wall Street Journal.
But the polygraph tests don’t actually detect whether a person is lying; they measure physiological responses associated with stress, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure and respiration.
That makes them prone to false positives and negatives up to 25 percent of the time, according to Psychology Today. The disgraced former CIA agent Aldrich Ames famously passed two lie detector tests while spying for the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s.
The tests are so unreliable they’re not admissible as evidence in criminal trials, according to the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Large intelligence agencies, however, use them to establish employment eligibility and to maintain security clearances, according to the Post.
It’s not clear whether the polygraph tests administered by the Trump administration have led to any firings or prosecutions so far.
Three of Hegseth’s top aides were fired without warning earlier this month after an investigation into media leaks, and the defense secretary has demanded they be prosecuted. The former aides have called the firings “unconscionable” and said they were never told exactly why they were dismissed.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also wrote on social media last week that she had referred “two intelligence community LEAKS” to the Department of Justice for prosecution, with a third criminal referral on the way.
Gabbard’s post accused the three “deep-state criminals” of leaking classified information.
But under new guidelines from the Department of Justice, prosecutors “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies,” The Washington Post reported.
The new guidelines are so broad they could target anyone who shares information the administration considers negative or embarrassing, which is not necessarily against the law, a former senior intelligence community lawyer told the paper.
“People are terrified,” the lawyer said.
“It’s a toxic environment,” a current Pentagon official with a top-secret clearance told the Post. “First, you’ve got the insecurity of not knowing whether you’re going to get fired or not. Then there’s the witch hunt to find the whistleblowers who are exposing the ineptitude and bad management of agencies. They’re trying to silence those who do not follow the party line.”
Another defense official said four-star generals had started parroting Hegseth’s language about patriotism and “warfighters” in an effort not to get fired or swept up in the leak probes.
“In the past, candor was valued as a positive trait among military leaders,” the official said. “Today, people no longer feel safe having an opinion that might be misconstrued as going against [Hegseth] or [Trump].”
The irony is that Hegseth himself is being investigated for accidentally leaking detailed military plans to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.
The editor was mistakenly added to an unsecured group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal last month where Hegseth and other Cabinet members discussed the March 15 military strikes in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis.
The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced on April 3 he would be investigating whether Hegseth and other Pentagon employees followed Defense Department policies on the use of commercial messaging apps, and whether they complied with the law governing classification and records retention.
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