More: "My response is that I stand by every single word of this report," she said. "We were very diligent. We were very careful. It went through multiple levels of editing, review, care.

"And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after " immediately after the story published was, I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information."

Fitzpatrick said that she used more than two dozen sources for her original report, characterizing the officials she spoke to as "people who felt that not only was this conduct embarrassing, unbecoming, but that it was a national security vulnerability, and that Americans were perhaps less safe as a result."

Asked about some of the more shocking details in her report, she said: "I had never heard anything like this as a reporter, and I think I spent a very long time, a very diligent amount of time checking it out because it was so explosive.

"And I think the fact that this was known throughout the FBI, throughout the Justice Department, that it reached the White House is because it was so alarming. And people were really frightened."

She said some of her sources were not merely panicking but profoundly emotional in expressing their concerns to her, describing them as "grown men who have done nothing but counterintelligence and solving some of the worst-of-the-worst crimes who are not easily scared, intimidated, concerned."

"They were frightened," she said. "And that really stuck with me."