The Arrest of a 21-Year-Old National Guard Member for Leaking Classified Docs Leads to More Questions than Answers

 

Until I saw the document labeled, CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update, I was inclined to believe that the leaked documents were the work of a frustrated whistleblower. But I have changed my mind. This looks like a controlled, directed leak by individuals who manipulated the 21-year-old National Guard troop member into taking certain documents and posting them on a public server.

The CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update is a document produced by analysts in the Operations Center to be delivered to the regular CIA analysts. When I worked in the Ops Center I was responsible for monitoring traffic from Latin American posts and flagging items that the analysts in the Latin American Division need to know. I would write up summary paragraphs just like the ones in the documents leaked online.

This was an internal CIA document. It was not broadcast to the other intelligence agencies. In my 23 years working with U.S. military commands around the world, I never saw a copy of this type of report circulating among those with the highest clearances. Never. How did a 21-year-old kid get his hands on at least two of these?

The classified documents now in the public domain are focused primarily on Russia and Ukraine. The CIA Ops Center docs now floating around the Internet are only partial copies. For example, there are three pages, all classified Top Secret, from an eight-page document. If you’re a goofy 21-year-old gamer simply intent on impressing your young proteges, why not take all eight pages? My guess is that the other five pages contained no intelligence information on Ukraine or Russia.

The kid reportedly was a cyber analyst assigned to the 102 Intelligence Wing, which reports to the U.S. 16 Air Force:

The 102nd ISS provides intelligence systems maintenance, integration, and operations for the AN/GSQ-272 SENTINEL weapon system, as part of the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF-DCGS) Enterprise, enabling near real-time Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (CPED) of [remainer left off of website].

The Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber), headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, focuses on information warfare in the modern age.  Information Warfare requires integrating: Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance; Cyber Warfare; Electromagnetic Warfare; Weather; Public Affairs; and Information Operations capabilities. 16th Air Force ensures that our Air Force and Nation are fast, resilient, and fully integrated in competition, crisis, and conflict by incorporating Information Warfare at operational and tactical levels, capitalizing on the value of information by leading the charge for uniquely-21st century challenges in the highly dynamic, seamless, and global information domain..

I do not believe it is a coincidence that he served in an information warfare unit. Remember, he was a low-ranked enlisted guy. He had a chain of command. He did not show up to work and decide what duties he had to perform while on the job. He reported to and worked at the direction of Non-Commissioned Officers and Commissioned Officers. He did not just waltz into a SCIF and print documents at his leisure. A guy at his level would attract attention if he was printing off a document like the CIA Ops Center report.

I believe that the alleged leaker did have access to Top Secret intelligence by virtue of his job. I don’t know if there was a polygraph requirement for him and his cohorts.

Regardless, all of the intelligence that has been leaked was on a Top Secret computer net and could only be accessed inside a SCIF.  How could a 21-year-old obtain these documents?

Let me explain why I think the story currently being sold to the public about this young man is too good to be true and, in my view, is a smoke screen.

The first problem is BELLINGCAT. Bellingcat is an Open Source Intelligence outfit that has been funded by U.S. and British intelligence. BELLINGCAT is “credited” with sleuthing out the identity of the site where the classified documents were posted and the name of the leaker.

Pictures of the classified documents first appeared outside of Thug Shaker Central in early March, investigative group Bellingcat reported.

A batch of 10 documents surfaced on a Discord server called “Minecraft Earth Map” after a user posted them.

Bellingcat traced an earlier leak to a Discord server called “WowMao,” which appears to have been sourced from the Thug Shaker Central channel.

An amazing coincidence, right?

So how did the Washington Post get on the story? If the reporters were not tipped off by Bellingcat then it had to be someone in the U.S. intelligence or military hierarchy.

The Washington Post report is written perfectly for credulous readers. It touches all the hot buttons — e.g., racist, religious extremist, anti-Semite, loves guns, hates the U.S. Government. The only thing lacking is that the fellow, Jack Texeira, was not wearing a MAGA cap.

To reiterate an earlier point, the leaked material is not random intelligence material. It is designed to tell several stories. The most prominent is the deterioration of Ukrainian capabilities and the major obstacles confronting the United States and the rest of NATO in supplying badly needed air defense, artillery shells, artillery pieces and tanks. In other words, Ukraine is going to crash and burn.

The information about Israel, South Korea and the UN Secretary General also is enormously damaging to U.S. foreign policy equities. This is a real black eye.

Let me suggest one possibility for this leak — create a predicate for forcing Joe Biden from office. The revelations in the classified documents are not fabrications designed to deceive the Russians. Nor are they the kind of material to rally more U.S. support for pouring more resources into the black hole of Ukraine. These leaks feed the meme that the Biden team is incompetent and endangering American interests overseas.

Just consider what has transpired since these documents were first posted in the “private” gamers chat. Putin and Xi Jinping consequential historic summit in March marked the destruction of the Nixon policy that had guided U.S./China relations for fifty-one years. In the aftermath of the summit, China facilitated a rapprochement between longtime adversaries, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Those two countries now have formal diplomatic relations and are working together to end the U.S.-backed war in Yemen. The U.S. support for the Yemen conflict was an important element in the United States’ effort to contain and weaken Iran.

In addition, China has stepped up its efforts to encourage important countries to bid adios to the dollar and use the yuan instead for international commerce. The Saudis and Brazil have signed on.

China, along with Russia, are also playing a critical role in cutting the legs out from under the U.S. effort to remove Syria’s President Bashir Assad. It was President Obama who persuaded the Gulf Arabs, Saudi Arabia in particular, to help fund and incite the Arab Spring. Part of that effort was the Arab League decision to kick Syria out. That is now being reversed and Syria, once a pariah thanks to U.S. and U.K. pressure, is now being welcomed back into the Arab League. For the United States, the war in Syria was another pillar in its policy to weaken Iran. That pillar is headed for the dustbin of history.

Russia also is playing a key role in brokering a rapprochement between Turkey and Syria. Turkey played a critical role arming Islamic insurgent, with weapons supplied by the United States courtesy of stockpiles in Libya, in the early days of the civil war in Syria. If you don’t think this is pissing off the CIA, then you don’t know the CIA.

There was another leak today that is quite damaging to Joe Biden.

Former Obama stenographer Mike McCormick blows the whistle on Biden kickback scheme: He is ‘a criminal’. McCormick claims then-Vice President Biden used American taxpayer money to enrich his family and says Jake Sullivan a ‘conspirator.’ I am unable to post the video so you will have to click on the following link.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6324957711112

Just another coincidence? I do not think so. Besides painting Biden as a foreign policy failure who is endangering American interests, this twist in the story reinforces the meme of Biden corruption.

With respect to the alleged leaker, Jack Texeira, I will be interested to see if he gets the William Calley treatment (i.e., only Calley was punished for the My Lai Massacre while his chain of command got off scot-free) or if his immediate chain of command are called to account.

Sundance at the Conservative Tree House offers another plausible explanation for the leaks. Also worth considering.

The intel leak is the operation created by the Intelligence Community to support new expanded powers for the Fourth Branch of Government.

The Sundance scenario and mine are not mutually exclusive. Both may be true. I wouldn’t discount the desire of the Deep State to kill two birds with one stone.

Here is Larry’s discussion with Judge Napolitano from yesterday.