Investigators are “getting close” to determining who was behind the leak of highly classified US intelligence documents, President Joe Biden said on Thursday, as Washington races to contain the fallout from the release of sensitive information about the war in Ukraine and beyond.
“There’s a full-blown investigation going on, as you know, with the intelligence community and the justice department, and they’re getting close,” Biden told reporters in Ireland.
More than 100 classified documents were leaked on social media, starting on the messaging platform Discord, and some were also published on Telegram and Twitter last week. They largely focus on the war in Ukraine but also include information details intercepted by the US, such as from allies including South Korea and Israel.
US officials said on Thursday they are starting to assess the fallout from the leak even as they try to understand its full extent.
The Pentagon last week referred the matter to the US justice department, which has opened a criminal investigation.
The Pentagon is also conducting its own review on who has access to sensitive information and how it is distributed. The defence department has already begun clamping down on who receives daily intelligence briefings and as well as its most sensitive information, US officials said Thursday.
US media reported on Thursday that the leader of the Discord group where the documents were initially leaked is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Biden tried to play down the immediate consequences of the disclosure. While the documents do not contain battle plans for Ukraine’s coming counteroffensive against Russia, they offer a more downbeat picture of the state of Ukrainian forces and their ability to make significant gains on the battlefield in the coming months.
“I’m concerned that it happened, but there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence right now,” the president said.
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