Credit: The New York Post
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin briefed reporters on the leak of dozens of sensitive and highly classified documents Tuesday. He said they were “somewhere in the web.”
“Well, they were somewhere…in the web and where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point,” Austin said.
American defense and intelligence officials say that as many as 53 documents were posted online, dated between Feb. 23 and March 1.
The documents may have come from outside the Pentagon.
Austin addressed the leak at the beginning of a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo, and Philippine Officer in Charge of the Department of National Defense Carlito Galvez, regarding the additional sites being established on the island nation to help facilitate training opportunities and improve disaster response.
Austin told the reporters he was briefed about the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified material on the morning of April 6.
“Since then, I’ve been convening with senior department leaders daily on our response, and I’ve directed an urgent cross department effort,” he said. “We’ve referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOD), which has opened a criminal investigation.”
One reporter asked Austin how he was only just made aware of the documents a week ago even though the classified documents were leaked and posted online for months.
Austin told the reporter that the documents ts his department was aware of was dated February 28 and March 1. He added that he didn’t know if there were other documents that were online before those dates.
“These are things that we will find out as we continue to investigate,” he said. “We take this very seriously and will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.”
Austin also said he could not say much more about the leaked documents because of the open investigation.
“Nothing will ever stop us from keeping America secure,” Austin said.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to questions regarding the timeline of the leak and why Austin was notified of the leak weeks after they were posted.
Fox News shared:
The briefings from the DOD are typically distributed to anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 people with necessary security clearances and include details on the war in Ukraine and battlefield assessments.
DOD briefings are also delivered electronically on secure iPads, and if printed out, investigators can track where they were printed from because they must run through secure printers that are often numbered.
Fox News learned that within the classified documents published online, there is intelligence that was not part of the DOD briefing books that appears to be produced by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.
Milancy Harris, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, is leading the Pentagon’s internal investigation, coordinating with the DOD’s Office of Intelligence and Security, Public Affairs, Office of General Council, Legislative Affairs, and the Joint Staff.
