A 21-year-old Air National guardsman has been identified as the person behind the leak of classified US government documents. The person has been identified as Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, two law enforcement officials said Thursday. He is likely to be arrested later the same day.
Earlier today, US President Joe Biden, who is on a three-day visit of Ireland, said that investigators are close to finding the source of the leak of highly classified intelligence documents. US has said that the sensitive leak poses a major security risk for the country and is believed to be the most serious security breach in a decade.
A formal criminal probe was opened by the Department of Justice last week after the matter was referred by the Pentagon. The damage done by the release is being assessed by Pentagon.
Reporters in Dublin asked Biden for an update on the leak, to which he said, “I can’t (say) right now, there’s a full-blown investigation going on, as you know with the intelligence community and the justice department, they’re getting close – I don’t have the answers.”
He added that even though he is “concerned” that confidential documents were leaked, nothing about the records that he is aware of could have “great consequences.”
“I’m not concerned about the leak, I’m concerned that it happened but there is nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Washington Post said in a report that the person who leaked the documents is a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked on a military base. The documents were posted by him in a chatroom formed by two dozen other boys and men on Discord, an instant messaging platform popular with gamers. The members of this group know him as OG and told Washington Post that he used to post documents containing strange acronyms and jargon which not many paid attention to.
The Post based its report, which did not name the person, on interviews with two members of the Discord chat group.
Discord says that it is cooperating with the probe.
(With inputs from agencies)
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