Classified Intelligence Leak

US intelligence officials are scrambling to contain the damage and find the source of a fairly-serious revelation of classified intelligence information related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.  This is causing all sorts of problems,  as one might well expect.  So far,  everyone seems rather clueless about who did this release (which is a felony-level crime),  and how they got the materials (unapproved possession of which is also a felony-level crime). 

This is only a speculation,  but it is an informed speculation.  The person or persons who stole this material are quite likely far-right believers in at least some of the Qanon conspiracy theory items.  It is unlikely that a Russian operative or spy would be the culprit,  because no country who steals such information reveals the theft,  because it reveals what they now know. 

I point to the far-right / Qanon-and-similar crowd because of the apparent modifications to the revealed documents (which mirrored Russian propaganda and disinformation),  and because of the nature of the social media echo chamber sites where the stolen materials were first posted.  Those sites are well-known to be infested with Russian disinformation and propaganda,  which is exactly why there is a pro-Putin wing among Republicans,  that opposes US support for Ukraine.  

Among those sites where this material first appeared is 4chan,  which is where Qanon got its start,  and where it quickly morphed into a leader cult around Donald Trump.  Being a cult,  the conspiracy theories are a matter of belief,  and members will not have anything to do with facts.  We've seen many such cults before:  only two examples are Koresh's Branch Davidians,  and Hitler's Nazis.  They are very dangerous to themselves and all around them,  some more than others.  

Someone in the crowd handling or dealing with these materials is one of those far-right extremist cult types.  We've seen this before,  such as with retired Gen. Flynn.  That person absconded with the documents,  modified them to reflect his or her beliefs,  and posted them on one or more of these right-wing extremist echo-chamber sites,  where they quickly spread to other sites. 

The FBI would do well to think very hard about that scenario,  in trying to determine who stole and released these materials.

There is the possibility that ordinary gamers who are also hackers,  found their way into a Pentagon computer and got these documents.  I say that because some reports put the very first appearance on-line as a gamer site named Discord,  not a far-right echo chamber.  However,  once up there,  the far-right and Qanon, etc., people would have quickly found it and posted it to their sites,  complete with their mods that favor the Russians,  just because that’s part of their belief system. 

So that’s another scenario about which the FBI should be thinking very hard.  Looking at when,  and on which sites,  the documents were,  versus were not,  modified,  might be a clue as to who first stole them,  and perhaps a little bit toward how.

Related materials can be found in “A Crack in the Dam?” posted 21 March 2023 to this site,  and “Beware of Leader Cults”,  posted 13 February 2020 to this site.  Use the navigation tool on the left side of this page to get there much quicker than just scrolling down,  especially for the 2020 article.  Click on the year,  then the month,  then the title.  All you need to find anything quickly on this site with that tool,  is its title and posting date.

How do I know about this stuff?  First-hand,  actually. 

I myself am a fierce independent politically.  I look at what they do,  not what they say,  then make up my own mind about who might better serve.  It’s been a “least-of-the-evils” choice for many years now.  And I am very unhappy with both parties about THAT!

I have many friends who are either dyed-in-the-wool Democrats or dyed-in-the-wool Republicans,  and many of those Republicans are actually fiercely-loyal Trump supporters,  who think he can do no wrong.  At least one of those is a self-admitted Qanon believer who has been trying for some years now to convince me that the Qanon conspiracy theories are the real truth of the world.  I can tell that he certainly believes they are.  I do not.

And THAT is how I know about this stuff:  first-hand experiences related to me from many friends!  I just happen to be one of those who can learn from the experiences of others,  as well as myself.

Update 4-14-2023: 

Well,  a very young National Guard airman by the name of Jack Teixeira has been arrested as the source of the leak,  in Massachussets.  Reporting doesn’t yet have a lot of facts,  but he seems to have been some sort of IT technician working on some sort of military or government fiber optic network,  over which classified information was transmitted. 

He apparently first posted about what he saw in the Discord gamer site,  in a chat room.  Then he apparently posted actual photos of classified documents,  supposedly when he got very little feedback from the earlier revelations.  From there,  once the actual documents were posted,  they got picked up and spread around to other sites,  such as 4chan.

It thus appears that his case has elements of both of the possible scenarios that I suggested above.

What is truly disturbing about this,  is how long this went on before it was noticed!  Apparently this started late last year,  and wasn’t noticed until classified images were noticed on the extremist right-wing sites,  complete with doctored data,  in the last couple of months.  That does not speak well for how our military and civilian intelligence agencies are monitoring these potentially dangerous sites.

The intelligence people are simply going to have to do a better job monitoring the right wing extremist sites,  which are the echo chambers that breed the right-wing extremist terrorists we have seen the last few years.  The FBI has already warned us about how significant that threat is.  I am very disappointed to see how poorly the FBI’s warning has been heeded.