After the publication of secret military and intelligence documents on the Internet, the US government is looking for the originator. According to government sources, the variety of issues raised in the papers, which relate to the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggests they were passed on by an American rather than an ally. “The focus now is that this is a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Defense Department official, told Reuters. The department reiterated on Sunday, the Justice Department was formally asked to conduct an investigation.
Since the leak, Reuters has reviewed more than 50 classified and top secret documents posted on internet platforms. Among other things, it is striking that figures on estimated Russian losses in Ukraine were unexpectedly low. It is also not clear why at least one document is marked as “unclassified” even though it contains top secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN”, meaning that they cannot be disclosed to foreign nationals.
Two US government officials told Reuters they could not rule out that the documents had been tampered with. In this way, an attempt could be made to mislead investigators as to the origin of the papers or to spread false information that could harm US security interests.