The Pentagon, Justice Department and other arms of the federal government scrambled Monday to track down the source of a major classified documents leak and to limit the widening fallout in the U.S. and in allied capitals around the world, from Jerusalem to Seoul.
The collateral damage from the leak — one of the most serious disclosures of sensitive information in years — has quickly spread far beyond American shores. Biden administration officials said they’re in contact with allies amid signs that the individuals behind the leak are intentionally trying to sow dissension between the U.S. and its closest partners.
“The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material. An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our allies and partners,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement late Sunday night.
“Over the weekend, U.S. officials have engaged with Allies and partners and have informed relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction about the disclosure. The Department of Defense’s highest priority is the defense of our nation and our national security,” she said. “We have referred this matter to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.”
The documents appear to have been first posted to social media sites in early March but went virtually unnoticed until a New York Times article last Friday. The document dump contained more than 100 images of government papers with classification markings posted to social media sites, including Twitter.
The documents, most of which are several months old, contained information about U.S. weapons provided to Ukraine, the disposition of Ukrainian forces, and sensitive intelligence regarding several other nations, including Israel and South Korea.
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Some of the leaked documents were marked “Top Secret,” the nation’s highest classification marking.
Many of the documents have since been deleted, though open-source intelligence sleuths have been able to download more than 60 of the papers.
At home, the incident has sparked a major government-wide investigation. But the potential damage extends across the globe.
In Israel, one of the documents reportedly included information suggesting that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, had encouraged its staff and Israeli citizens to join recent domestic protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform plan. Israel rejected that claim, with Mr. Netanyahu calling it “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”
“The Mossad and its senior officials did not — and do not — encourage agency personnel to join the demonstrations against the government, political demonstrations or any political activity,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to Reuters.
In South Korea, government officials said they’ll speak with their American counterparts about revelations that the U.S. apparently gathered signals intelligence related to South Korea’s internal debate over weapons sales to the U.S., and Seoul’s fears that those weapons would ultimately end up in Ukraine.
“We will review precedents and instances involving other countries, and come up with our response accordingly,” a South Korean presidential official said Sunday after being asked about the revelations, according to the country’s Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea has a policy against providing weapons to nations involved in an active conflict.
In Turkey, a NATO ally, the documents raise questions about whether the Russian mercenary outfit the Wagner Group believes it can replenish its weapons stockpiles with Turkish equipment. One of the leaked classified documents shows that Wagner figures met with “Turkish contacts” in February in an effort to procure weapons and other equipment, The New York Times reported. The documents do not specify whether those efforts were successful, The Times said.
In Ukraine, the documents reveal some military information that could be valuable to Russia. For example, the papers reportedly detail the “expenditure rate” of U.S.-supplied artillery systems by the Ukrainian military. Such information would give Russian forces insight into how quickly the Ukrainian military is burning through its resources.
Ukrainian officials said they believe the documents were forged by Russia or pro-Russian actors, raising questions about their authenticity and accuracy. It does appear that at least some of the documents were altered, raising the possibility that the underlying materials are genuine but important details were changed by pro-Russian actors.
For example, the documents list the number of estimated Russian military deaths so far in the war at just 16,000. Western officials put the number of Russian casualties at nearly 200,000.
But the original leak appears to have come from inside the U.S., given the breadth of material included.
