CNN senior writer Zachary B. Wolf comments on the Trump administration’s use of polygraphs to go after federal employees who speak with journalists. His well-researched article, “The Trump administration revives an old intimidation tactic: the polygraph machine,” was published on 5 June 2025. Excerpt:
When President Ronald Reagan’s White House threatened thousands of government officials with polygraph exams, supposedly to protect classified data (but probably also to control press leaks), his Secretary of State George Shultz threatened to resign.
Reagan’s White House backed down and agreed to impose the tests only for those suspected of espionage, according to a 1985 New York Times report.
In terms of catching spies, polygraph tests failed spectacularly in key moments. More on that in a moment.
First, consider the second Trump administration, which is leaning in on polygraphs, presumably to ferret out leakers, but also as an apparent method of intimidation.
“The polygraph has been weaponized and is being used against individuals who have never had a polygraph requirement, whether pre-employment or security, in their entire federal careers,” said Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in representing people who work in national security, after a slew of published reports about polygraph threats throughout the Trump administration.
The tests are frequently being used to identify not leaks of classified information but rather “unclassified conversations regarding policy or embarrassing decisions that have made their way through the rumor mill or directly to the media,” said Zaid, who has previously testified before Congress about the use of polygraphs and sued federal agencies for their practices.
Read the rest of the article, which also reviews the history of polygraphy and polygraph policy in the United States, here.
Not mentioned in the article is the fact that there is no documented instance of polygraph screening ever solving a federal leak investigation.
While numerous of President Donald J. Trump’s appointees have embraced polygraph screening (or the threat thereof), including most notably Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, the President himself has, to our knowledge, made no public comment on polygraph policy.