Top officials with the Pentagon and intelligence community briefed the entire Senate on Wednesday following the leak of at least 100 classified documents across the internet, many of them detailing the war in Ukraine and the secret affairs of U.S. allies.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he still wanted to know the “full extent” of the leaks, why it wasn’t spotted sooner and how the Pentagon would mitigate the chances of a similar situation occurring in the future.
“Part of it is they don’t know the answers, which is even worse,” Rubio told reporters after the briefing, while also alleging the Biden administration was withholding some information.
“This is going to come to a head, one way or another,” Rubio added.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he was “left with more questions than answers.”
“I remain deeply unhappy and unsatisfied with the structure and procedures of access,” he said. “My impression coming out of that meeting is too many people have too much access to too much information without safeguards or guardrails.”
The accused leaker, Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman with the Massachusetts National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing, allegedly released photos of classified documents — some labeled Top Secret — for months to a small group on the online chat forum Discord.
In early March, the documents leaked out of Discord, eventually spreading to Twitter and Telegram, where Pentagon records about the Ukraine war were obtained by pro-Russian sources.
The Defense Department is still conducting an investigation of the leaks, including how many of the documents were altered or manipulated online, along with another review of the procedures for access to classified information.
Several senators said the information they received at Wednesday’s briefing was not much more than what has already been publicly reported.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
