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DOJ launches probe into leaked military documents
Leaked military documents first reported in March when images were posted to social media platform Discord
Leaked military documents first reported in March when images were posted to social media platform Discord
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened an investigation into the apparent leak of classified U.S. military documents, according to multiple reports. The leaked military documents, which were posted on social media, include information on U.S. military assessments of the conflict in Ukraine and details about Russia’s military capabilities, as well as assessments of Russian troop movements in Syria.
The authenticity of the documents has not been officially confirmed, but U.S. officials have said they believe they are real. The documents are marked “classified” and “for official use only,” and some are sourced from human intelligence, according to CNN.
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The leak was first reported in early March when images of the documents were posted to the social media platform Discord. It was not until this week that the documents started to gain more attention after someone posted a portion of the documents to the web forum 4chan, and then a Russian speaker posted an altered version of one of the documents on Telegram.
Former senior U.S. intelligence and military officials have expressed alarm about the potential scope and impact of the leak.
“This appears to be a very serious breach of security, which is potentially very damaging both to the US as well as many friends and allies,” said James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama.
The leak could have a real-world impact, as it provides Russia with information on Ukrainian military capabilities and plans for counteroffensives.
“If real, the leaking of these documents can do significant damage to Ukrainian counteroffensive since this information effectively provides Russia with Ukrainian order of battle,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a Russia analyst who is executive chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator.
The source of the leak is currently unknown, and it is unclear whether the documents were stolen, hacked or otherwise obtained illegally. It is also unknown whether the leaker was a U.S. government employee or an outsider.
The documents appear to have been obtained and leaked by someone who gained access to the U.S. intelligence system because some of them have markings indicating that their contents were not even shared with the closest U.S. intelligence partners.
Some of the documents also have markings indicating that they were shared with countries in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Officials from the other Five Eyes countries are waiting for the U.S. to share a damage assessment, as the countries simultaneously conduct their own assessments.
U.S. officials believe that someone altered one of the documents to make the estimated number of Ukrainians killed in the war far higher than it is. However, Thomas Rid, an expert on state-backed information operations and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, expressed skepticism that the leak was a professional Russian intelligence operation, given that both unedited and doctored versions of the documents were made public.
The DOJ’s investigation of the leaked military documents is likely to focus on identifying the source of the leak and determining whether any U.S. laws were broken. It is also possible that the investigation could lead to changes in the way that the U.S. government handles classified information.
Officials have suggested that the leak investigation would focus on the Pentagon, but a person familiar with U.S. intelligence said that the probe would likely not be limited to the Pentagon, given the large number of people across the government who have access to these kinds of documents.
