Is it illegal for a federal employee that is working on this case, to leak information to a news source on someone that is very damaging to the individual being investigated but not proven to be true?
As a federal employee who has access to highly sensitive and damaging information to the individual being investigated and it’s also unproven, I’d have a hard time believing that no crime is being committed. That said, it’s you’re area and not mine but if it isn’t a crime…it damn well should be.
They’re not acting as an individual on their own time. They are a professional, hired to do a job, with access to information not accessible to the average person that is not their’s to share IMO.
Unless you have sex trafficking employees I don’t see the comparison as very meaningful. Those same employees leak all the time and talk about things you wish they weren’t. In that environment it’s known as “office gossip”. How much money they’re getting paid, who is sneaking around with who, etc.