Washington Wednesday: The new Pentagon papers

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 19th of April, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It, Washington Wednesday. Today a breach of security with classified documents.

Two weeks ago, social media was buzzing over the documents that appeared to have been leaked from the Pentagon. Within days, both the Departments of Defense and Justice had opened investigations, but by that time, the documents in question had already been online over a month.

BUTLER: Immediately the word went out that the documents might be a Russian misinformation scheme. But then last Thursday, the New York Times broke the news of who the leaker was. Shortly before the FBI arrested the suspect, a 21-year-old air national guardsman named Jack Teixeira.

The next day, Teixeira was arraigned at a federal courthouse in Boston and charged with mishandling national-defense information and classified documents.

Today he’s in court again for a detention hearing to determine if he will be held in custody until his trial.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, but let’s start with the most glaring one: how did a 21-year-old guardsman get access to all of this classified information?

According to former lieutenant general Thomas Spoehr, Teixeira’s job put him in a unique position.

THOMAS SPOEHR: He was an Airman First Class in the Massachusetts Air National Guard as a... It was called Cyber Defense Operations Journeyman. And so he would have had responsibilities within his unit to protect the the information in the National Guard and his unit and support others in that endeavor. Lots of times the National Guard because of a shortage in the regular armed forces, you know, they are called upon to mobilize and come help regular army and those type of units do their mission. So he could have been in that kind of capacity. I don't think we know all that yet. And what, what capacity he was acting when he accessed these documents. That will come to light, but it hasn't come to light yet.

EICHER: Spoehr currently heads up the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. He says in order to access many of the documents Teixeira allegedly posted online, he would have needed top-secret clearance, and that’s not easy

SPOEHR: So to get that level of clearance, you do a full scope investigation going back 10 years in a person's life. You look at their references, their friends, their parents, their family, where they've lived, their jobs, any criminal history, any credit history. You look at all those things for any sign of an issue. He must not have had any, because he obviously got that clearance. Normally 21-year-old military members don't get that level of a clearance. That type of clearance comes later in a career when you have a higher level assignment. But in his case, because of his military occupational specialty, he was involved in cyber and communications. And the military needs people like that to run their classified networks. They need people that can connect all the wires and make sure that people can communicate. That's that's why he had that level of clearance. And it's in it's doubly rare that he was a member of the National Guard, because again, those type of clearances normally, you find mostly in the active component, the regular forces and not in the reserves and the guard forces.

BUTLER: As intelligence forces and journalists reviewed the files Teixeira allegedly leaked, it appears he had pretty wide access to something called the Joint Worldwide Information Communications System, too much access even. You’ll hear Spoehr refer to the system by its acronym J-WICS.

SPOEHR: By all accounts, this guy Jack was able to get access to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff daily intelligence briefing. He was able to get intel access to the CIA's daily intelligence briefing - documents that he could have no conceivable use for in his current occupation. And so I would want to know, how did he get access to these level of documents? Because within this system that I talked about, JWICS, there are supposed to be internal firewalls that say, Hey, your job is this and you are therefore granted access to this group of files or this group of materials. But nobody in JWICS should have the ability, the license, if you will, to just range freely throughout the entire system, and pick and choose and grab those things for which they find interesting. That should not be the case, it's not the case, and so how did that system break down in this particular event?

EICHER: In addition to the way Teixeira was able to access classified information, another question is, if he did it, why did he do it? Some in the media are comparing Teixeira to previous leakers who considered themselves whistleblowers. But Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington says that there’s a fundamental difference here.

PATRICK EDDINGTON: In the case of a lot of the previous whistleblowers that we've had, and I certainly would not classify Jack Teixeira as a whistleblower in this case, I'm thinking about individuals like former Army Captain Christopher Pyle, in 1971. His revelations about unconstitutional army surveillance, which he shared with Senator Sam Ervin and his investigative committee; guys, like Dan Ellsberg, of course, easily the most famous American whistleblower ever, revealing US war crimes and related things in the Vietnam War; Thomas Tam, former Justice Department attorney, who revealed George W. Bush's illegal Stellar Wind mass surveillance program to the New York Times. And then, of course, Ed Snowden, who revealed to the Guardian newspaper initially in June of 2013, the illegal mass surveillance taking place under the section 215 Patriot Act authority. Teixeire, you know, basically was a kid is what it boils down to here. And he took this material and shared it with people on this particular Discord, I think, to just you know, impress his friends, most of whom, from what we can gather so far, were younger than him. And I think, you know, that was, that appears to largely be the motivation.

BUTLER: So it appears that Teixeria downloaded the classified information about U.S. involvement in Ukraine for personal use, not as part of something bigger.

But folly has consequences, and regardless of Teixeira’s motivation, his alleged leak has created a foreign-policy mess for the U.S. in three ways. Again, Thomas Spoehr.

SPOEHR: A huge level of detail that no, nobody had ever seen before, and it’s now you know, obviously, in the hands of the Russians, and anybody else that's interested. And it talks about Ukrainian vulnerabilities, how they're running short on munitions. And even though, you know, the information might have been cut off in March, a lot of these problems will linger on the status and the readiness of Ukrainian brigades. That's, that's very damaging kinds of operational detail. And then there's another category of stuff, which show people how the United States was monitoring our allies and friends and reading their communications— countries like Egypt, South Korea, other countries. I think everybody probably has grown up enough to know that that type of thing happens. But it's normally not talked about. And when countries are presented with evidence that the United States is reading their mail, if you will, and listening in to their phone calls, it becomes very embarrassing for this country, because those other countries now have to explain to their citizens, you know, why are we allowing the United States to monitor our communications? Aren't these people supposed to be our friends? So it damages our standing in the eyes of other people. And then finally, you know, there's lots of intelligence that's been released on Russia and their status. And there's, there's indications that some of this information was gained through access to Russian military and intelligence sources, which may now be compromised. And it's very conceivable that people could lose their lives because they have now been outed, if you will, by this intelligence, and so I can't conceive of a scenario where you do not say that this has been a significant breach of US intelligence and national interests.

EICHER: While the State Department and Pentagon work on damage control, Teixeira is in federal custody. He has yet to enter a formal plea.

He’s probably looking at serious charges for violating his duty to protect national secrets, but whatever happens it won’t mean life in prison. WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta explains the reason for that.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Teixeira will be facing two criminal accounts, both under Title 18. The first is under the Espionage Act. Section 793 prohibits unauthorized retention and transmission of National Defense Information. And that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. The second count is under Section 1924, which prohibits unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. For that one, he could face up to five years in prison. If convicted on both counts and served the maximum sentence, he would be spending 15 years in federal prison.

BUTLER: The Pentagon meanwhile is going to need to take a long, hard look at how it handles classified information. And as recruitment numbers continue to drop, finding and keeping reliable service members will be that much more important.

Carolina Lumetta is WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter. You can keep up with her coverage of stories like this in her weekly newsletter, The Stew. Check it out at wng.org/newsletters.

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