On Monday, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh admitted that the Department of Defense still isn’t sure how many other classified documents taken by a National Guard IT specialist were leaked online.
Last Friday, the FBI took 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard IT specialist Jack Teixiera into custody for disclosing highly classified military intelligence documents to users in a private chat room, the Associated Press reported.
Teixeira, who ran a Discord chat room, shared top-secret information related to the war in Ukraine and other matters with members of the group. Despite his age and low rank, Teixeira received a Top Secret security clearance in 2021.
Teixeira has been charged with removing or transmitting classified national defense information, which is a violation of the Espionage Act.
During Monday’s Pentagon press briefing, Singh said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top Pentagon officials are meeting daily to “examine the scope and scale” of the leak.
When asked if the Pentagon knows how many documents were taken, Singh said the Justice Department is leading the investigation into the leaks and Pentagon officials are “consulting with them on an ongoing basis.” She said the investigation will likely uncover more classified documents than the ones already posted.
Singh said an additional investigation into the matter is being conducted by the Intelligence and Security Department of the Pentagon to assess what documents were leaked and “where they surfaced online.”
When pressed further on the number of documents Teixeira had taken, Singh said while she couldn’t provide a specific number, she knows that investigators will “continue to find docs online.” She said the review and assessment are ongoing and once the Pentagon has a “better grasp” of the scale and scope of the leak, it will update the press.
However, Singh added that more documents could be circulating online, noting that media outlets have reported different numbers of documents. She said every time investigators cull through the documents, the “number grows.”
She said officials are working with social media platforms to find additional leaked documents to review them.
