Fox News’ Jason Chaffetz Declares Pentagon Documents Leak ‘Punishable by Death’

Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz prescribed the death penalty for anyone responsible for the leak of highly-classified Pentagon documents on U.S. intelligence gathering.

The leaked documents illustrate plans between the United States and Ukraine in the midst of Russia’s ongoing invasion, but they also provide insights into America’s efforts to monitor the intelligence services of foreign allies and adversaries alike. When Chaffetz joined Harris Faulkner to talk about the story on Wednesday, she teed him up with House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul calling the leak an act of “espionage.”

The former House Oversight Committee chairman agreed with McCaul by saying the leak endangers America’s personnel and international relationships.

“There are far too many people that have classified clearances,” Chaffetz said. While he argued that too many congressional documents are marked “classified,” Chaffetz reminded Faulkner that the legal penalty for espionage is execution.

“People’s lives are on the line,” he said. “They have got to be able to put this back in and prosecute some people. It is punishable by death.”

He continued:

This is death penalty type of stuff because people’s lives are on the line. Imagine yourself. If you’re in one of the clandestine services, if you’re putting your life on the line, taking on some difficult task overseas and you have some yahoo in the back room whose out there revealing information or sensitive documents and information that puts your life in danger, wouldn’t you want that person to feel the pain of it? Yeah. Unless the penalty is absolutely severe, off the charts, you are not going to be able to prevent this in the future.

Watch above via Fox News.