Global Courant 2023-04-12 04:39:04
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin informed reporters on Tuesday about the leak of dozens of sensitive and highly classified documents, saying they were “on the Internet somewhere.”
“Well, they were somewhere… on the web and where exactly and who had access at the time, we don’t know. We just don’t know at this point,” Austin said.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gives a statement to the press at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) headquarters near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, March 9, 2023. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images, File)
Fox News learned earlier Tuesday through conversations with several U.S. defense and intelligence officials that as many as 53 documents had been posted online, dating between Feb. 23 and March 1.
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The documents, officials told Fox News, may have come from outside the Pentagon.
Austin discussed the leak at the start of a press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Philippine Secretary of State Enrique Manalo and Philippine Officer in Charge of the Department of National Defense Carlito Galvez about the additional sites being established on the island to help facilitate the of training opportunities and improving disaster response.
The Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), is the largest office building in the world by floor space. (AFP via Getty Images, file)
Austin told reporters that he was first notified of the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified material on the morning of April 6.
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“Since then, I’ve met daily with senior department leaders about our response, and I’ve led an urgent cross-departmental effort,” he said. “We have referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOD), which has opened a criminal investigation.”
A reporter asked him how he had been made aware of the documents only a week ago when leaked classified Pentagon documents had been posted online for months.
Austin told the reporter that the documents his department was aware of were dated February 28 and March 1, adding that he did not know if there were any other documents that were online before those dates.
“These are things we’ll find out as we continue to investigate,” he said. “We are taking this very seriously and will continue to examine and turn over every rock until we find its source and size.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks before a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on March 15, 2023 at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, File)
Austin said he couldn’t say much more about the leaked documents due to the ongoing investigation.
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“Nothing will ever stop us from keeping America safe,” Austin said.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to questions about the leak’s timeline and why Austin was notified of the leak weeks after it was reportedly posted.
Typically distributed to between 1,000 and 5,000 people with the necessary security clearances, DOD briefings include details of the war in Ukraine and battlefield assessments.
DOD briefings are also delivered electronically on secure iPads, and when printed, researchers can track where they were printed from, as they must run through secure printers that are often numbered.
Fox News found that in the classified documents published online there is information that was not part of the DOD briefing books that appear to have been produced by agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
Milancy Harris, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, directs the Pentagon’s internal investigation and coordinates with the DOD’s Office of Intelligence and Security, Public Affairs, Office of the General Counsel, Legislative Affairs, and the Joint Staff.
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A defense official said each agency will have its own point of contact for the investigation and there is not yet one person leading a whole multi-agency effort.
Greg Norman and Jennifer Griffin of Fox News contributed to this report.
