BREACH OF TRUST — The Pentagon, already nervous and angry after a trust-shattering tranche of highly classified images and documents spread online last week, is waiting to see if that leak is just the beginning. Some officials view the still-unfolding saga as perhaps even more damaging than Edward Snowden’s famous leak of classified intelligence a decade ago, because of how recent and relevant the information is. And it remains unclear whether the Defense Department is anywhere near finding the source of the leak, or ascertaining whether the leaker will drop more material in the coming days. The Justice Department opened a criminal inquiry into the breach of over 100 documents on Sunday evening, including information on Ukraine’s fight against Russia, as well as Turkish cooperation with Israel and U.S. efforts to spy on South Korea. In addition to potentially damaging Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive this spring, the leak has also embittered U.S. allies, who are reportedly still waiting on substantive answers from Washington in response to requests for a briefing. To discuss the diplomatic fallout and where the Defense Department goes from here, Nightly spoke with POLITICO’s Erin Banco, a national security reporter focused on the intelligence community. This conversation has been edited. Why is this specific intelligence so damaging to the United States? The intelligence deals with countries and allies from across the world. It shows that the U.S. is spying on some of those allies. it also contains information about sources and methods — something that can be really dangerous when we talk about intelligence gathering. And lastly, the leak of such highly classified intelligence raises serious questions about whether the U.S. can be trusted to share and disseminate the intel within the government in a safe and secure way. Allies across the world are upset about this leak. With regards to those allies — who’s spoken up publicly about their frustrations thus far? And what kind of airing of grievances might we see moving forward? A lot of that frustration has been kept under wraps and behind closed doors. We know diplomats and officials from Kyiv, London, Dubai and elsewhere in Europe have been in touch with the Biden administration about the leak, inquiring about what the U.S. is going to do to remedy the situation. South Korea has been the most outspoken so far because there is one document that contains a potentially damaging allegation about how the country had received a request from the U.S. to send ammunition to Ukraine. The documents also exposed the extent to which we are spying on South Korea. What are existing theories about who might have leaked these documents and why? We don’t know who originally owned or possessed these documents and who leaked them and why. There are a lot of unanswered questions. But the documents appear to have first leaked many months ago — as early as January — on Discord on a server with about 20 members. The documents were then taken and reposted on other servers on that same site (Discord). And then they were reposted again on other sites such as Telegram, Twitter and 4chan. The person who posted them on that original Discord server has gone dark. But we’ve spoken to someone else who was in contact with that user. Apparently this Discord server contained users that often posted racist content. That’s about all we know right now. Do the documents themselves — or anything else we know so far — provide any clues as to whether more information might be coming? There appears to be another tranche out there — possibly in the possession of one of the users in that original Discord group. The running theory is someone is holding some of these other docs close to the chest. We could see those published either on social media or in the media in the coming days. What are the practical implications of this leak on U.S. interests abroad? It’s unlikely these documents will have any immediate impact on the battlefield in Ukraine. They are fairly old and do not provide real-time assessments of the situation on the ground. The biggest thing to watch out for is how U.S. allies and partners respond to the leak and the extent to which this leak divides Washington from those allies What’s the scope of the Justice Department inquiry into all of this, and what could that potentially produce? We don’t know much about the DOJ investigation at this point. All we know is that the DOJ is working with other agencies — including the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community — to investigate the leak, including who might be responsible and any motivations behind the postings. If the DOJ finds the leaker, the FBI is likely to make an arrest. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh.
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