Panetta Leaked bin Laden Raid Details: Report

If the Justice Department is worried about leaks, it might want to place a call to a certain former CIA director/secretary of defense. Leon Panetta revealed a variety of classified info about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—including the names of the ground commanders involved—at an event that Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal was allowed to attend, according to an unreleased Inspector General's office report obtained by the Project on Government Oversight. Federal law specifically prohibits the public release of the commanders' names, the report stresses.

The report has long been finished, but it "has been controlled and manipulated by the IG front office," an Office of Inspector General employee wrote in a December email to a congressional staffer. The staffer had asked about rumors that office was "sitting on it until Secretary Panetta retires." House Republicans requested the investigation after news broke that Boal had been allowed to attend an event at CIA headquarters honoring the bin Laden raid participants. It's unclear if Panetta knew Boal was there, Politico points out; 1,300 people were reportedly in attendance. (More Leon Panetta stories.)