Citing testimony of DEA Administrator John C. Lawn, the report of the Kerry Committee released in December 1988 pinned the leak on North stating he "decided to play politics with the issue". In an interview with Frontline, North said he was told by his superiors on the National Security Council to brief Senator Paula Hawkins about the operation, but he denied leaking the report. Hawkins told Frontline that neither she nor her staff leaked the information after the briefing. Jacoby later denied that North was the source of his story and attributed it to a deceased staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. Criticism of U.S. failure to protect Seal Louisiana Attorney General William Guste wrote to United States Attorney General Edwin Meese criticizing the government's failure to protect Seal as a witness. At Guste's request, Meese launched an investigation to determine whether or not attorneys in Louisiana, Miami, and Washington had mishandled the case, and to determine whether or not Seal should have been forced into protective custody. Government attorneys stated that Seal placed himself in danger by refusing to move his family and enter a witness protection program. Media depictions Films Seal is portrayed by Dennis Hopper in Doublecrossed (1991), a docudrama made for HBO. Seal is portrayed by Michael Paré in the American crime drama film The Infiltrator (2016), in two brief, historically inaccurate scenes that exercise dramatic license to depict the film's title character, Robert Mazur, as a passenger in a car being driven by Seal who is killed in a motorcycle drive-by shooting. Seal is portrayed by Tom Cruise in the crime drama-comedy film American Made (2017), loosely based on Seal's life, produced by Imagine Entertainment. Little of the film is historically accurate; most of the plot, such as the murder of Seal's brother-in-law, was invented for purposes of the film. Television Seal is portrayed by the actor Sebastián Sánchez in Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord as the character of Harry Beal. Seal is portrayed by theater director Thaddeus Phillips under his real name also of his nickname Ellis McKenzie in the 2013 TV series Alias El Mexicano. Seal is portrayed by Dylan Bruno in Season 1, Episode 4, of the Netflix series Narcos (2015). See also Allegations of CIA drug trafficking Kerry Committee report References Further reading Articles Swain, Mark. "Who Killed Barry Seal? An Investigative Obituary." High Times, June 1986, pp. 22–23. Archived from