Bernstein Warns Against ‘Witch Hunt’ on Leaks Inquiry
As the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal approaches, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward appeared on “Face the Nation,” where they not only discussed the Watergate break-in but also the current outrage in Congress over national security leaks.
“Let’s be really careful before we start a witch hunt here,” said Bernstein, who was one of the reporters at the Washington Post who spent months investigating Richard Nixon and his administration for the 1972 break-in of the Democratic Party’s campaign headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
“You’ve got to be very careful about creating a witch hunt for sources, and a witch hunt in which you go after reporters, because now more than ever we need real reporting on this presidency, on national security, on all of these areas,” Bernstein said.
He also said “the press is not the problem here” because of laws governing classified information. “The record of the press is really quite good in protecting real, genuine national security secrets, which we often know about,” he added.
Woodward, who broke the Watergate scandal with Bernstein, agreed. “This is an area that needs to be handled with great delicacy, and I’m not sure we have a political system that knows how to do anything with great delicacy.”