GOP asks FBI to investigate senior Pentagon official they say leaked classified information

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EXCLUSIVE – Republican senators on Wednesday asked the FBI to investigate a senior defense official who they say has a history of leaking classified information to the media, according to a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.

The letter says Undersecretary Colin Kahl has leaked to the press before, and most recently talked to reporters about Chinese spy balloons. The senators asked for an update on their demand to investigate leaks from Kahl, which was first made in April 2021 after his nomination from President Biden.

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The letter to the FBI – sent by Sen. Bill Hagerty, along with four of his Republican colleagues – alleges that Under Secretary Colin Kahl has a history of leaks to the press, with the most recent being on the Chinese spy balloons. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"Given this and other developments, we continue to believe that Kahl’s actions require investigation by the FBI to determine whether any laws were broken," the senators wrote.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The senators say Kahl is the source of a leak amid the Chinese spy balloon scandal that provided reporters with information of similar spy balloons that traveled over the U.S. during the Trump administration.

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The GOP senators alleged that Undersecretary Colin Kahl has a history of leaks to the press. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"It remains unclear whether this leak was cleared internally through the proper channels," the senators wrote in a March letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. "Either way, it was a brazen attempt to shift blame."

Kahl also worked in the Obama administration as the national security adviser to Vice President Biden.

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The letter claimed Kahl shared classified information he knew from his time with Biden in a 2017 tweet about a National Security Council deputies meeting on counterterrorism in Yemen. Kahl tweeted he heard the meeting was less than 30 minutes and ended with deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland saying, "Saddle up."

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Kahl said in 2021 during his confirmation process that the claims he leaked information about the Yemen meeting were false because what he shared was widely known information.