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White House Counsel To Look Into Accidental Leak Of CIA Name

White House Counsel Neil Eggleston has been asked to investigate what went wrong over the weekend when the name of the CIA's top official in Afghanistan was inadvertently made public.

Administration spokeswoman Caitlyn Hayden said Tuesday that Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has asked Eggleston to examine the matter and report back with recommendations on how to make sure something like this does not happen again.

As Bill Chappell reported on Monday, a document meant to assist journalists covering President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan mistakenly included the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul.

Bill said: "When it realized the error, the White House issued a new list — but by then, the original had been circulated to foreign and domestic news agencies. The information was included in a pool report that was emailed to thousands of recipients Sunday night."

Reuters writes:

"White House deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken, speaking on CNN on Tuesday, declined to comment on whether the CIA official would be forced to leave Afghanistan.

" 'The security of this person is foremost in our minds and will be taken care of,' Blinken said."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.