What’s happening in Ukraine right now, and what can we learn from it? Former Justice Department “Leak Czar” Brandon Van Grack
Researchers and social media sleuths have discovered more secret documents on other sites after a small number of military documents were found on Telegram andTwitter on Wednesday.
Still others divulge key weaknesses in Ukrainian weaponry, air defense, and battalion sizes and readiness at a critical point in the war, as Ukrainian forces gear up to launch a counteroffensive against the Russians – and just as the US and Ukraine have begun to develop a more mutually trusting relationship over intelligence-sharing.
While there’s still a lot we don’t know, former Justice Department “leak czar” Brandon Van Grack says national security damage has certainly been done.
“The only debate now is how much damage there was and the threat is still live,” he says. This is the top priority because we don’t know if anyone still has access to classified information or if there could be more leaks.
Van Grack was a national security focused person at the Justice Department who led the investigation into Edward Snowden after he leaked thousands of documents. One of the sites where the Ukraine documents were shared is now represented by Van Grack, as a partner at Morrison & Foerster.
He talked to Morning Edition’s A Martnez on Monday about what could be happening behind the scenes as law enforcement and intelligence officials work together to try and plug the leak.
The FBI along with the DOJ is identifying what third parties, what companies may have relevant information, and issuing search warrants and subpoenas and that’s probably what’s been occurring through the weekend. The intelligence committee in coordination with the the FBI is also reviewing the leaked documents to see if they can identify … who had access to them and any other identifying features.
There are multiple places to start, which is from the FBI, DOJ perspective, all of the reporting of companies and individuals who may have posted this or where it may have been posted, you’re collecting that evidence. At the same time, you are closely coordinating with the intelligence community. There are documents and there are images, so you want to narrow the group who had access to it.
You’re walking and chewing gum at the same time. Right now the focus needs to be, and is, identifying who this person or these persons are, period. That is the priority. As that’s going on, to the extent that they do identify someone, then you’re starting to put together a charging document and figure out that aspect of it. The priority at this time is to identify the leak so that there are no more leaks.
We do not know what the overlap is because of special counsel appointments, but we should have some overlap. And so certainly there’s at least some subset of those persons who have been sprinting for the last few months on those cases and now would probably need to do some sort of pivot to focus on this for the time being.
This case shows why we need to enforce the laws that can make it illegal to retain or disclose classified information. There’s millions of Americans that have access to … untold amounts of classified information, and they can’t all be monitored. And the way that you control that access, and ensure that it’s not disclosed to people that don’t have access, is to enforce these laws.
The Pentagon has stood up an “interagency effort” to assess the impact of the leak, but US officials and close allies already fear the revelations could jeopardize sensitive sources and compromise important foreign relationships.
But, to date, little is known about who may have been responsible for the leak or how some of the nation’s most tightly guarded secrets ended up on social media sites.
The Defense Department is still reviewing the matter and has taken steps to tighten the flow of such highly sensitive documents, officials said, which are normally available on any given day to hundreds of people across the government.
CongressionalLawmakers have expressed concerns about the leak and the sensitivity of the online documents, but have been left in the dark about what has happened.
Both House and Senate Intelligence Committee leaders are demanding answers from the Biden administration. The chairman of the House intelligence committee is scheduled to get a briefing on Monday and his Senate counterparts want one as well.
Leaking documents: What the US had to do with Zelensky’s violation of the National Security Council, Russia’s armed forces, and cooperation with South Korea
The photos on the posts are of crumpled documents laid on top of magazines and surrounded by other random objects. It is as if they had been hastily folded up and shoved into a pocket before being removed from a secure location, a source familiar with these kinds of documents told CNN.
US officials say some of the documents are legit and expose the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies.
The degree to which the US has penetrated the RussianMinistry of Defense and the Russian mercenary organization is revealed by others, who reveal that it could now be cut off from the outside world.
One document shows the US spied on Ukrainian President Zelensky. A source close to Zelensky said that it was unsurprising, but Ukrainian officials were not happy with the leak.
Zelensky suggested that Russia use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to strike Russian deployment locations in the south of Russia since Ukraine has not got long-range weapons, according to a US intelligence report.
Signals intelligence includes intercepted communications and is broadly defined by the National Security Agency as “intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems used by foreign targets, such as communications systems, radars, and weapons systems.”
Yet another document describes, in remarkable detail, a conversation between two senior South Korean national security officials about concerns by the country’s National Security Council over a US request for ammunition.
The officials worried that supplying the ammunition, which the US would then send to Ukraine, would violate South Korea’s policy of not supplying lethal aid to countries at war. One of the officials suggested a way of circumventing the policy without actually altering it, by selling the bullets to Poland.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/politics/classified-documents-leak-explainer/index.html
Towards the Security of the United States: Israel’s Attack on Crime and its Implications for Foreign Intelligence Systems and the Defense of the Donbas Region
An intelligence report about Israel has caused outrage in Jerusalem. The report, produced by the CIA and sourced to signals intelligence, says that Israel’s main intelligence agency, the Mossad, had been encouraging protests against the country’s new government – “including several explicit calls to action,” the report alleges.
While US allies are aware that the US intelligence community collects information on friendly nations, diplomats from some of the countries mentioned told CNN it was frustrating – and harmful to the US reputation – to see that information exposed publicly.
“We expect the US to share a damage assessment with us in the coming days, but we cannot wait for their assessment. An official from a country that is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement said that they are doing their own right now.
There was a document titled ” Russia-Ukraine: Battle for the Donbas Region Likely” that the official pointed out was alarming. Heading for a Stalemate throughout the year. The document notes the challenges with assessing the “endurance of Ukraine’s operations.”
The official said thatgains forUkraine will be hard to accomplish but that having a private US assessment showing a likely yearlong stalemate is not helpful.
The adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak spoke on his Telegram channel on Friday that he believes the documents disseminated are inauthentic and have nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans.
US government officials “are engaging with allies and partners at high levels over this including to reassure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and the fidelity of securing our partnerships” following the leak, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday.
The State Department has named Wendy Sherman as the lead for the diplomatic response, according to a US official.
The Easter holiday has slowed discussions in recent days, according to one of the diplomats, who said they are expecting a briefing from US officials in the coming days.
The Joint Staff, made up of the most senior uniformed leadership that advises the president, is looking at who gets the reports. Many of the documents had markings indicating that they had been produced by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as J2, and appear to be briefing documents.
Chris Meagher said the Pentagon team is working to figure out the scale and scope of the leak.
The Department of Defence referred the case to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation after being asked by the government, according to John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications.
Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill who oversee the intelligence community finally have been granted the ability to look over the classified documents found improperly in the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, three sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, ending a months-long standoff between Congress and the administration.
For several months, leaders of the intelligence committees have been pushing for more information about the kinds of documents found, offering harsh criticism for the lack of information they received early on.
The argument from top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee has been that they needed to understand the contents and extent of the documents found at each residence in part to understand the potential damage that could be unfurled if the documents had fallen into the wrong hands and if proper mitigation protocols had been followed.
In January, Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, blasted the administration for the lack of transparency over the documents and what they were.
“We want to know what this information is,” he said at the time. What materials did they have? So that we can make an honest assessment when they provide us a risk assessment, of whether or not they’ve taken the proper mitigation if any was necessary.”
Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News Tuesday morning, “it is very disappointing that it has taken the government this long to allow the Gang of Eight to have access” to the classified documents.