WASHINGTON (Nexstar) – Biden administration and Pentagon officials say there is a serious concern for national security following a leak of dozens of classified documents with information on the war in Ukraine and U.S. involvement.
Officials say they are taking the leak very seriously as the Pentagon has reached out to allies, and is now limiting the number of people with access to key documents. The agency is also holding daily meetings to asses the damage.
U.S. officials are outraged about the leaked documents as National Security Council member John Kirby said, “There is no excuse for these kinds of documents to be in the public domain.”
Dr. Joanna Spear, professor of international affairs at George Washington University says the leak is a serious national security concern that also exposes information about other U.S. allies.
“One of the things that’s notable is how current they are,” Spear said.
The professor noted there are signs parts of the documents were changed to spread misinformation and put Russia in a more favorable light.
“The document that we think has been doctored is the one that says Ukraine has a lot more war deaths than Russia,” Spear said.
The leak only became publicly known a few days ago when the documents hit Twitter. That’s when Dr. Spear believes the editing happened.
Before that, the documents may have been circling for months on a messaging site called Discord where Spear says “people discuss Minecraft more than they do international politics and it’s not clear what the motive is.”
While there are about 100 documents that are known to have been leaked so far, U.S. officials admit they don’t know how large the leak may be.
Kirby furthered that they’re “going to get to the bottom of this.”
