Pentagon briefing on leaks leaves senators on both sides grumbling

Senators on both sides of the aisle emerged from a classified briefing on Capitol Hill with questions and complaints about the largest leak of classified documents in a decade, and they repeated calls to more closely restrict who has access to U.S. secrets.

Top officials with the Pentagon and intelligence community briefed the entire Senate on Wednesday following the leak of at least 100 classified documents across the internet, many of them detailing the war in Ukraine and the secret affairs of U.S. allies.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) said he still wanted to know the “full extent” of the leaks, why it wasn’t spotted sooner and how the Pentagon would mitigate the chances of a similar situation occurring in the future.

“Part of it is they don’t know the answers, which is even worse,” Rubio told reporters after the briefing, also alleging the Biden administration was withholding some information. “This is going to come to a head, one way or another.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he was “left with more questions than answers.”

“I remain deeply unhappy and unsatisfied with the structure and procedures of access,” he said. “My impression coming out of that meeting is too many people have too much access to too much information without safeguards or guardrails.”

The accused leaker, Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman with the Massachusetts National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing, allegedly released photos of classified documents — some labeled top secret — for months to a small group on the online chat forum Discord.

In early March, the documents leaked out of Discord and onto the wider online sphere, spreading to Twitter and Telegram, where Pentagon records about the Ukraine war were obtained by pro-Russian sources. 

Earlier this month, The New York Times first reported on the classified documents circulating online, setting off concerns across Washington and spurring a formal Pentagon review.

Teixeira was arrested last week and faces up to 15 years in prison. The Department of Justice has charged Teixeira under the espionage act with the unlawful retention and transmission of classified national secrets.

The Defense Department is still investigating the leaks, including how many of the documents were altered or manipulated online, along with another review of the procedures for access to classified information.

Congress returned from an Easter recess this week promising to get more information on the document leaks and look into whether the Pentagon should restrict who has access to such records in the future. 

House lawmakers received a briefing on Wednesday evening as well.

Lawmakers in the House also emerged from the briefing with the consensus that little new information was shared.

But members on both sides of the aisle expressed a desire to investigate further and advance congressional action if needed. 

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said the Biden administration is taking the matter seriously but said there should be “no limit” to the number of congressional committees reviewing the leaks.

“Any person handling classified information should realize the material can impact lives, there can be lives lost,” she said. “We cannot tolerate any lack of understanding of that, any lack of seriousness.”

Several senators said the information they received at the briefing was not much more than what has already been publicly reported.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the briefing was helpful but added there was “a lot more information” still to learn when the Pentagon concluded its review.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said the administration was still studying the incident and has in the meantime taken “some measures” to stop any future leaks.

Kennedy called for more restrictions on how classified information is shared, advocating for the employment of technology to block the sharing of secret documents.

“If you’re going to give someone with this level of emotional maturity access to this information,” he said, “why aren’t we using the technology to stop him from sharing?”

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the airman’s age was not a focus of the probes, adding “the vast majority of our military is young.”

The leaks have already dealt a major blow to U.S. national security and to the war effort in Ukraine. 

The unauthorized release of the records has also damaged Washington’s relationships with allies abroad, as some detailed U.S. spying on allied countries such as Israel and South Korea.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Congress still needs information on the “security systems we have to prevent somebody from having access to the kind of confidential information” Teixeira had.

“They didn’t work in this case,” Hoeven said. “What’s going to be done to make sure that this doesn’t happen [again] in the future?”

Rebecca Beitsch contributed reporting

— Updated at 7:10 p.m.