President Joe Biden has insisted he is ‘not concerned’ about the leak of top secret Pentagon documents and authorities are ‘getting close’ to tracking down the leaker who posted the files on Discord.
The president broke his silence on the massive security breach on Thursday and downplayed the significance by suggesting the information on the Ukraine war and US intelligence operations around the world were out of date.
His first comments followed reports overnight that the man behind the most significant leak of classified documents in a decade is a 20-something video game and gun enthusiast who worked at a secure military site.
Two members of the chat room, known as ‘Thug Shaker Central’, told the Washington Post the suspect shared the sensitive content with like minded-people.
President Joe Biden issued his first comments on a massive Pentagon security leak attributed to a 20-something gun enthusiast
‘I’m concerned that it happened. But there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of,’ Biden said, when asked if he was concerned about the leak.
Experts have warned the breach could jeopardize overseas intelligence sources, damage relations with allies and even hinder Ukraine’s war with Russia.
His remarks on the ultra-serious security breach came as he strolled through gardens at the official residence of Irish President Michael Higgins on the first bright and sunny day of his trip here.
The remarks came after Biden kept mum when asked earlier inside the residence to respond to the latest developments after the massive Pentagon security leak of highly classified information as he began a new day of activities in Ireland.
He ignored a shouted question on the matter, instead continuing with protocol activities amid his four-day trip.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m going to go plant a tree,’ Biden said while camera shutters clicked at the Irish president’s residence.
Biden made the remarks while engaging in protocol activities at the Irish president’s residence. He said he rang the Peace bell for peace and for his ancestors
President Joe Biden ignored a question about an investigation of a leak of massive amounts of Pentagon information. He met with Ireland’s President Michael Higgins Thursday in Dublin
He was equally tight-lipped when presented with a softball question about what were his quintessentially Irish characteristics.
‘I’m not going to presume. I’ll let you make that judgement,’ said Biden, who has been getting plenty of mileage out of his Irish roots on the trip, including at a pub in his ancestral homeland of County Louth Wednesday.
He began his day of activities after White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was peppered with questions about the leak, a topic that also dominated her press briefing aboard Air Force One en route to Ireland.
She insisted Biden did not talk about the subject during his one-on-one meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Northern Ireland Wednesday. ‘it did not come up, the leaks, the leaked documents, in that conversation so I can confirm that for all of you,’ she told reporters in Dublin.
She resisted multiple efforts to get her to comment on new information about how a man who worked at a military base posted close-held secrets about the state of the Russian and Ukrainian military on a gaming chat site.
Biden is back in Dublin after White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says he ‘had the time of his life’ on a visit to County Louth
Biden’s visit with Higgins was the start of another day of activities in Ireland. He planted a tree on the grounds of the White House residence
She said the Justice Department ‘is reviewing these documents. We cannot speak to the validity of these documents.
The Pentagon ‘is certainly – they’ve announced that they’re taking steps to further restrict access’ to secret information, she said.
‘We’re certainly reviewing the national security implications of the disclosure and the mitigation of the impact the release of these documents could have on the US national security and also our partners and allies. That is something that that is being reviewed and looked into,’ said Jean-Pierre, who also wouldn’t respond directly when asked if the administration reviewers knew as much about the leaker’s identity as the Post does.
Amanda Sloat, a top National Security Official, deferred when asked a question of her own at the same briefing with Jean-Pierre.
She was asked how European governments were responding to the leaks. ‘I will save that one for for Korean after we’re done with [questions about] the trip,’ said Sloat.
It might well have fit into her portfolio to comment if she chose to. When Biden was introducing her at the residence later Thursday, he said of Sloat: ‘She’s the saving grace of our foreign policy operation.’
The man behind the most significant leak of classified documents in a decade is a 20-something video game and gun enthusiast who worked at a secure military site, according to a report, and shared the files in a chat room with a group of around 20 like-minded young people.
Two members of the chat room, known as ‘Thug Shaker Central’, described to The Washington Post the person who had shared the documents.
‘He’s fit. He’s strong. He’s armed. He’s trained. Just about everything you can expect out of some sort of crazy movie,’ one of the members said.
He described him as ‘a young, charismatic man who loves nature, God, shooting guns and racing cars.’
Amid an intense search for the source of the leaks, The Washington Post reported they had seen video and photos of the man, as well as recordings of his interactions with members of the group.
In a video seen by The Post, the man is seen at a shooting range with a large rifle, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings. The man looks into the camera and yells racial and antisemitic insults, then fires multiple rounds at a target.
One of the leaked documents, which have been posted online – sparking a FBI hunt for the leaker, and a Pentagon investigation
This document appears to show the state of Ukraine’s air defenses in February and in May, when it is anticipated they’ll be badly depleted
Ukraine’s air defenses could be depleted within weeks – making the country vulnerable to Russia President Vladimir Putin’s fighter jets, newly leaked Pentagon documents suggests
Images circulating online reveal clues that point to the leaker’s identity. This picture shows an English-language instruction manual for a hunting scope in the background
The leaks – which began six to eight months ago and stopped in mid March, and were first reported by The New York Times on April 6 – have sparked a manhunt across multiple U.S. agencies.
The two chat room members told The Washington Post they expected the leaker to be caught, but denied he was an Edward Snowden-type whistleblower.
Instead, they said, he was sharing the documents with his group of friends, believing they may find them interesting, and ‘wanting us to be super soldiers’.
‘If you had classified documents, you’d want to flex at least a little bit, like hey, I’m the big guy,’ the member said.
‘There is a little bit of showing off to friends, but as well as wanting to keep us informed.’
The documents included analyses of Ukraine’s military campaign; revelations that the U.S. spied on the leaders of Ukraine and South Korea, among others; and insight from within Russia’s military intelligence agency. Other documents showed U.S. concern about Egypt potentially supplying Russia with weapons, and detailed U.S. efforts to spy on Iran’s secret weapons programs. They also discussed nuclear weapons.
‘If your tax dollars are funding these atrocities, then we should be able to know about it,’ the member said.
The two members of ‘Thug Shaker Central’ referred to the leaker as ‘OG’ – slang for Original Gangster.
Both said they know his real name, and in which state he lives and works, but refused to say.
They said he was older than them, aged in his early to mid 20s.
One of the two was under 18, and spoke to The Washington Post with his mother’s permission. His version of events was corroborated by the second chat room member.
He spoke to The Washington Post for a series of video interviews, with his face obscured but his real voice used.
‘I want to keep OG’s identity secret because I still care for him, like a family member,’ the teenager said.
The documents – while up to several months old – offer detailed insights into which Russian intelligence agencies have been most compromised, and clues as to how the United States has gleaned so much secret Kremlin information
The intelligence breach could have a drastic impact upon the landscape of the conflict in Ukraine. Biden seen pictured meeting Ukrainian President Zelensky in February 2023
Thug Shaker Central formed in 2020, with OG acting as an unofficial leader.
A channel within the group was named ‘Bear v Pig’ – a reference to the Russian war on Ukraine – and it was in this channel that OG shared the documents.
‘He is not a Russian operative. He is not a Ukrainian operative,’ the member said. ‘Any claims that he is a Russian agent are categorically false. He is not interested in helping any foreign agencies with their attacks on the US.’
‘There is some anti-government sentiment. But that is not uncommon among most right-wingers.’
The teenager member told The Washington Post there were around 25 people who were in their group, about half of them located overseas.
Members were from Europe, Asia, and South America. There were several Russians and Ukrainians, he said.
He saw the group like a family, and said that OG counseled him when he was depressed.
‘We all grew very close to each other, like a tight-knit family,’ the member said. ‘We depended on each other.
‘There was no lack of love for each other.’
The teenager said they all looked up to OG, who he described as being ‘like an uncle’ and a father figure.
He was impressed by what he saw as OG’s ability to predict global events, which he said was down to his access to information which ‘only someone with this kind of high clearance’ would know.
On Wednesday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that the documents were believed to have come from the Central Intelligence Agency’s Operations Center and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The documents are usually briefed to senior-level decision makers at the Pentagon.
‘I was one of the very few people in the server that was able to understand that these [documents] were legitimate,’ the member said.
‘It felt like I was on top of Mount Everest.
‘I felt like I was above everyone else to some degree and that I knew stuff that they didn’t.’
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen on April 5. Some of the leaked documents discussed Iran’s secret weapons programs
OG posted several documents a week, and became annoyed when the others in the channel did not seem to pay attention to them.
‘He got upset, and he said on multiple occasions, if you guys aren’t going to interact with them, I’m going to stop sending them,’ the member said.
OG had originally spent many hours, he said, transcribing the documents: when the group became disinterested, OG switched ‘in anger’ to uploading photos of the documents instead.
‘He was a very smart man – there is no way, in any world, that he would not know that these were illegal.’
The change in tactics was risky: the photos provide clues to those trying to track the leaker down, such as household items, paper used, and backgrounds.
OG was critical of what he saw as ‘government overreach’, and ‘was critical of Waco and Ruby Ridge’.
Waco was the scene of a 1993 law enforcement stand-off with members of a cult; Ruby Ridge was an 11-day siege of preppers, in Idaho, in 1992.
He also spread conspiracy theories – arguing that the federal government knew in advance that a white supremacist was planning to murder black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, but deliberately let the attack happen, so they could ask for more funding.
The member said that, for several months, the documents were safe.
‘Most people in the server were smart enough as to kind of realize that they shouldn’t be posted anywhere else,’ the member said.
Yet on February 28, another member of the group shared the files in a chat room hosted by YouTuber ‘wow_mao’.
They then began spreading across the internet.
On April 6 – hours before The New York Times published their first report about the leak – OG came into the chat room ‘frantic, which is unusual for him,’ the member said.
‘He said something had happened, and he prayed to God that this event would not happen. But now it’s in God’s hands.’
The Chinese army is pictured on parade on Thursday. The leaked documents also detailed U.S. assessments of China
The chat room member said he remains in contact with OG until two days before he spoke to The Washington Post.
Thug Shaker Central was closed, but OG opened another room to communicate with the 25.
He ‘seemed very confused and lost as to what to do,’ the member said.
‘He’s fully aware of what’s happening and what the consequences may be. He’s just not sure on how to go about solving this situation. He seems pretty distraught about it.’
OG sent a final message to the group, telling them to ‘keep low and delete any information that could possibly relate to him.’
The group, realizing that OG had to disappear, ‘full-on sobbed and cried,’ the young member said.
‘It is like losing a family member.’
The teenager said he thought OG could be assassinated, or sent to Guantanamo Bay.
‘Maybe we should have had better opsec,’ he said – referencing ‘operations security.’
The teenager added: ‘I think I might be detained eventually. I think there might be a short investigation on how I knew this guy and they’ll try to get something out of me. They might try to threaten me with prison time if I don’t reveal their identity.’
The FBI is hunting for the source, and the Pentagon has opened an investigation.
‘An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our Allies and partners,’ said Sabrina Singh, Pentagon deputy press secretary.
Discord said in a statement that it is cooperating with law enforcement and has declined to comment further.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk