The movie Absence of Malice always has been one of my favorites.  In the movie, Paul Newman plays a man unfairly subjected to a federal investigation, who uses leaked and planted information to embarrass the investigators.  The picture culminates with a Justice Department official, played by Wilford Brimley, showing up to demand answers.  The local prosecutor tells him, “We had a leak.”  Brimley responds, “You had a leak?  The last time there was a leak like this, Noah built himself a boat!”  Given the the current state of affairs in Washington with regard to leaks and leaking, Brimley would have to tell Noah “your gonna need a bigger boat.”  Since Donald Trump was elected President, government agencies whose job it is to safeguard confidential and classified information have been leaking like  proverbial sieves.  It is clear that, long before Trump won the election and took the oath, the Obama administration had intelligence agencies conduct domestic surveillances for political purposes.  Once Trump became President, the leaks intensified.  One would expect that the substance of a President’s telephone calls to other heads of State would remain confidential, yet the contents of Trump’s conversations with world leaders, such as the Prime Minister of Australia, were leaked.  There have been constant leaks coming from intelligence agencies.  Then there’s the FBI.  That’s right, the FBI, the agency responsible for investigating people who leak classified information is itself one of the leakiest outfits these days.  Former FBI Director Comey was in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s myriad leaks of classified information.  He confirmed a number of such leaks, but in July of 2016, Comey signaled that he’s in favor of leaking classified information when he announced that “no prosecutor would prosecute” Hillary’s crimes.  That led to Comey’s firing by President Trump.  The firing prompted a torrent of leaks from inside the FBI, leaks attributed to Comey “loyalists” inside the Bureau.  The FBI leaked that Comey had an internal Memo of a meeting he had with the President in February, during which Comey claims Trump voiced his support of General Flynn, and supposedly said, according to leaked information published by the New York Times, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”  A leaker reported that Comey considered this an improper attempt by Trump to influence his investigation.  Comey is to testify about this next week.  Of course, Comey never mentioned any of this in his testimony before he was fired, and he never reported it to the Justice Department.  Maybe when Comey testifies, he can explain why he held back on this information until after he was fired.  Comey has said he he did not consider anyone in the Trump White House to be “honorable.”  He didn’t want to go to the inaugural, and when he did go, he tried to hide in the drapes to avoid seeing or speaking to Trump.  If Trump needed a good reason for firing Comey (and he didn’t) then a person who had concluded that his boss and his boss’s staff was dishonorable, before Trump even became President, had such an obvious bias that he had no business being involved in any investigation of the Trump administration, or as FBI Director.  The FBI even has leaked about leaks.  An FBI leaker has told reporters that the Comey Memo (which, as yet, has not been produced) also details a meeting in which Trump complained about leaks, and suggested to Comey that journalists who publish leaked information should be prosecuted.  Stunning, isn’t it?  Well, not really.  The Obama administration prosecuted and investigated more people, including reporters, for leaking, than all other Presidents combined.  Before the Obama administration itself began leaking confidential information for political purposes, it took a hard line on leaks.  Obama prosecuted:  Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who revealed waste at the agency.  Initially charged with espionage, he was sentenced to probation; Shamai Leibowitz, an FBI translator, revealed U.S. spying against Israeli diplomats to a blogger.  He was sentenced to 20 months in prison; Chelsea Manning leaked information to Wikileaks.  His/her sentence was 35 years; John Kiriakou, an CIA analyst was the whistleblower who revealed the secret CIA torture program.  His sentence was 30 months; Donald Sachtleben was an FBI agent and contractor who disclosed to the Associated Press details of a disrupted Yemen-based bomb plot.  His sentence was 43 months; Stephen Kim was a State Department advisor who disclosed information about North Korea’s plans to test a nuclear bomb to a Fox News reporter.  The reporter was investigated by the FBI as a possible “co-conspirator” for the mere act of newsgathering.  Kim’s sentence was 13 months; Edward Snowden’s leaking case is pending.  He revealed the wholesale, covert surveillance of innocent people by the NSA.  He faces decades in prison; CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling leaked information about plans to hinder the Iranian nuclear program to New York Times reporter James Risen.  Obama’s Justice Department investigated Risen, and tried to compel him to testify.  Sterling got 42 months in prison, prompting Risen to call the Obama administration “The greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation,” and to pledge, “I plan to spend the rest of my life fighting to undo damage done to press freedom in the United States by Barack Obama and Eric Holder.”  The leaking in the Trump administration is so pervasive that it now threatens to damage our relations with our allies.  Photos were leaked on the bomb used in the Manchester terrorist attack.  An angry British P.M., Theresa May, has threatened to stop sharing intelligence information with the U.S., if the information cannot be kept confidential.  This is a serious matter that may put American lives in danger.  The leakers responsible for the current leaking are all holdovers from the Obama administration, who consider their leaking their resistance to Trump.  These leakers are not noble individuals who are performing a public service.  They are criminals, and some of them need to go to prison.