Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a review of how the Department of Defense handles intelligence access and accountability following a massive trove of leaked classified documents.
The secretary directed Ronald Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, to lead the review process on Thursday. The order came hours after the FBI arrested an Air National Guardsman accused of illegally releasing hundreds of classified documents.
FBI ARRESTS JACK TEIXEIRA, AIR NATIONAL GUARDSMAN LINKED TO PENTAGON CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS LEAK
“I will also not hesitate to take any additional measures necessary to safeguard our nation’s secrets,” Austin said in a statement, adding, “The Department of Defense, in close partnership with the Intelligence Community and our interagency partners, will continue to review the national security implications of this unauthorized disclosure.”
Moultrie will “conduct a review of our intelligence access, accountability and control procedures within the Department to inform our efforts to prevent this kind of incident from happening again,” the secretary added.
Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested on Thursday afternoon in Dighton, Massachusetts, without incident by the FBI. He is an enlisted airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard at Otis Air National Guard Base, and he joined the service in September 2019.
“Today, the FBI took 21-year-old Jack Douglas Teixeira into custody without incident at a residence in North Dighton, Massachusetts, for his alleged involvement in leaking classified U.S. government and military documents,” an FBI spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “The FBI is continuing to conduct authorized law enforcement activity at the residence. Since late last week the FBI has aggressively pursued investigative leads and today’s arrest exemplifies our continued commitment to identifying, pursuing, and holding accountable those who betray our country’s trust and put our national security at risk.”
Teixeira has been accused of releasing hundreds of classified military documents on Discord, a social media and messaging platform popular among young people and video game players, for weeks, though it was only discovered recently. Austin was first briefed on the subject on April 6.
The documents he allegedly released revealed significant U.S. intelligence about a wide range of topics about allies and foes alike. Some allies have said the documents contain falsehoods, while the Pentagon has declined to comment on the released intelligence.
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“Just as we’re limited in what we can say about the DOJ’s ongoing investigation, we’ll be also very limited in what we can say about any of the documents themselves,” Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said Thursday. “And while we certainly understand the media’s interest in asking questions about the content of these documents, I will highlight that as a matter of long standing policy, just because classified information may be posted online or elsewhere does not mean it has been declassified by a classification authority.”
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks sent a memo to senior Pentagon leaders on Thursday with reminders about their policies on classified information. It reiterated that “personnel with access to classified information are trusted stewards of that information and the responsibility to safeguard classified information is a lifetime requirement for each individual granted a security clearance.”
