On the menu today: The FBI caught the leaker of the gargantuan trove of America’s intelligence secrets, and if you buy into the idea of a multiverse, where alternate dimensions play out different scenarios of history, you are likely to accept the increasingly common slogan, “This is the dumbest timeline.” It’s one thing to have our country’s secrets revealed by an ideologue such as Edward Snowden, or have some hapless schmo spill the beans to some Russian honeytrap like Anna Chapman. But no, we just had our biggest secrets revealed to the whole world by a 21-year-old Air Force National Guard tech-guy dweeb who wanted to look like an “original gangster” in front of his teenage friends on an online server.
A Devastating and Comprehensive Leak
Earlier this week, I noted that the usual response to a massive leak of classified information — enacting more restrictions upon who gets to see what intelligence, and explicitly or implicitly discouraging the sharing of information from one agency to another — inevitably leads to “stovepiping.” In fact, the Pentagon has already begun enacting new limits on who within its ranks receives its highly classified daily intelligence briefing. When critical information gets stovepiped, the U.S. government’s response to all kinds of threats from terrorists to hostile regimes gets slower and less effective.
And yet, upon learning about the details of this most recent leak . . . stovepipe away, spooks, because this sounds ridiculous:
As a newly minted member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard returned home from training, his mother took to her flower shop’s Facebook page to express pride in his accomplishments.
“Jack is on his way home today, tech school complete, ready to start his career in the Air National Guard!” said the post, dated June 3, 2021. It was accompanied by a photograph of a patriotic-themed balloon tied to a mailbox and emblazoned, “Welcome home!”
Patriotic zeal appeared common around Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, who had followed in the footsteps of numerous family members to join the military. Teixeira, slim and boyish in photographs taken in his blue dress uniform, had been assigned to manage and troubleshoot computers and communications systems for the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, according to the Air Force. . . .
While Teixeira was relatively inexperienced in the military, he had access to highly classified military intelligence through a Defense Department computer network known as the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter. The system would have allowed Teixeira to read and potentially print classified documents, though there are guidelines to handle those in accordance with the law.
A 21-year-old Air National guardsman had access to some of the biggest secrets of our intelligence community, including, but not limited to, reports stating:
- The Ukrainians are on a pace to run out of air-defense missiles by May; the document stated that the Ukrainians’ “ability to provide medium range air defense to protect the [front lines] will be completely reduced by May 23. UKR assessed to withstand 2-3 more wave strikes.”
- Western plans to arm and train Ukraine’s army, “including the status of nine Ukrainian brigades, the amount of armor and artillery in each one and the precise number of shells and precision-guided rockets Ukraine is firing each day.” As The Economist surmises, “If accurate, the data could allow Russian military intelligence to identify the specific brigades that have probably been tasked with breaching Russian defenses at the outset of the offensive. That, in turn, could allow Russia to carefully monitor those units to assess the location and timing of an offensive. One slide indicates that Ukraine’s 10th Corps is likely to command the operation, which will now make its headquarters an obvious Russian target. Another shows when the muddy ground is expected to harden sufficiently for heavy armored vehicles to pass over.”
- U.S. intelligence agencies have “penetrated nearly every aspect of the Russian intelligence apparatus and military command structure.”
- U.S. assessments that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is likely to face significant challenges and achieve limited gains in the coming year.
- The Mossad encouraged Israel’s anti-Netanyahu protests.
- “China approved provision of lethal aid to Russia in its war in Ukraine earlier this year and planned to disguise military equipment as civilian items.”
- “The China’s People’s Liberation Army had . . . successfully tested a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile called the DF-27.”
- As CNN described, “One document attributed to a signals intelligence report said that Jordan’s Foreign Ministry in late February planned to assure Beijing about its interest in a continued economic relationship, after Beijing reportedly complained that Chinese companies were not involved in the country’s 5G network rollout. Another said Nicaragua was negotiating with a Chinese company for the construction of a deepwater port on its Caribbean coast, attributing this information to signals intelligence.”
- “President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi of Egypt . . . a major recipient of U.S. aid, recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia.”
- Information about secret conversations at the highest level of the South Korean government, revealing that the U.S. is intercepting the electronic communications of President Yoon Suk Yeol and his top aides.
- Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán identified the United States as one of his party’s “top three adversaries” during a “political strategy session” on February 22.
- Russian intelligence officers bragged that they had “convinced the . . . United Arab Emirates ‘to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies.’”
As the Washington Post put it, the leak involved classified information from just about every major U.S. intelligence agency: “Documents describe intelligence activities at the National Security Agency, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) — arguably the most secretive intelligence agency in the government, responsible for a multibillion-dollar constellation of spy satellites.”
Other countries’ counterintelligence agencies love information like this because it lets them know which forms of communication are being intercepted by the U.S., and then they get their governments to stop using those forms of communication. It also helps them figure out who among their ranks is revealing or selling information to our spies.
Teixeira was a “cyber transport systems specialist” — in other words, he was one of the computer guys. The U.S. Air Force touts that job: “Whether it’s repairing a network hub at a stateside base or installing fiber-optic cable at a forward installation overseas, these experts keep our communications systems up and running and play an integral role in our continuing success.”
Teixeira was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod. It is very far from clear as to why Teixeira would have or need so much access to so much classified information to perform his duties; obviously, no one noticed or paid attention to the information he was accessing.
Over in The Atlantic, Juliette Kayyem, a former homeland-security adviser to former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick who helped oversee the state’s Air National Guard, says she can’t understand it, either. “Based on my experience, I am at a loss to explain why a 21-year-old member of the state intelligence wing, who does not appear to have been working in any federal capacity, would need access to the kind of materials whose release has so unnerved the Pentagon and supporters of the Ukrainian war effort. . . . It stretches any notion of homeland defense to think a low-level state Air Guard member should have access to materials about a war that the United States is not actively fighting and that poses no domestic risk.”
Teixeira was no whistle-blower, nor is there any evidence at this point that he was being influenced, blackmailed, or strong-armed by any foreign intelligence service. No, he’s just stupid, and he wanted to look like a big deal in front of his peers on a Discord chat server. His chosen online initials “OG” likely mean “original gangster,” a slang term for someone who’s incredibly exceptional, authentic, or “old-school.” I will remind you that this “original gangster” only recently became old enough to legally purchase alcohol.
President Biden said on Thursday that while he was concerned sensitive government documents had been leaked, “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”
This is an attempt at spin so ludicrously inaccurate it raises questions about Biden’s understanding of what happened. The Ukrainians had to alter some of their battle plans for the counteroffensive because of this leak; Ukraine’s top intelligence official lamented, “Russia is the only beneficiary of this.”
Either President Biden is lying his butt off, they’re not briefing him on all of the details, or he can’t remember what he was told in his briefings. Or some variation of all three.
ADDENDUM: From the Washington Post’s report: “The photos of documents posted online included a trail of clues, with items in the background that included Gorilla Glue, a Boston Red Sox hat, and hunting magazines.”
New York Yankees fans this morning: “I knew it.”
I was going to make a joke that while Red Sox fans spill national secrets, Yankees fans kill dictators such as Moammar Qaddafi, but that is apparently not the case. At this time, the preferred baseball team of the man who killed Qaddafi remains unknown.