The FBI wants to question a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in connection with the disclosure of classified military documents on the Ukraine war, according to sources.
Investigators believe that the guardsman, who specialises in intelligence, led a chat group where the documents were posted, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.
They identified the guardsman as Jack Teixeira of Swansea, Massachusetts.
The New York Times earlier reported the FBI’s interest in the person.
The Justice Department and FBI had narrowed the pool of potential suspects believed responsible for the disclosure of the highly classified material, sources said.
The Biden administration has been working to assess the diplomatic and national security consequences of the leaked documents since they were first reported last week.
A top Pentagon spokesman told reporters earlier this week that the disclosures present a “very serious risk to national security,” and the Justice Department opened an investigation to identify the person responsible.
“We’re getting close,” President Joe Biden told reporters in Ireland on Thursday. He said that though he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been disclosed, “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence”.
It was not clear how many suspects remained or when or if an arrest might be made.
The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday.
Sources said the leak may have started on a site called Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games. The Discord site hosts real-time voice, video and text chats for groups and describes itself as a place “where you can belong to a school club, a gaming group, or a worldwide art community”.
In one of those forums, originally created to talk about a range of topics, members would debate the war in Ukraine. According to one member of the chat, an unidentified poster shared documents that the poster claimed were classified, first typing them out with the poster’s own thoughts, then, as of a few months ago, uploading images of folded papers.
Discord has said it was cooperating with police.
There are only a few ways the classified information that was leaked could have been accessed, which may provide critical clues as to who is responsible. Typically in classified briefings, as with the slides that were placed on Discord, the information is shared electronically.
That is done either through secure computer terminals where users gain access based on their credentials or through tablets that are distributed for briefings and collected afterward.
If the slides need to be printed out instead, they can only be sent to secured printers that are able to handle classified documents — and that keep a digital record of everyone who has requested a printout.
In most of the photographs of documents posted online the pictures are of paper copies that look like they had been folded into quarters.
In the days since the leaks came to light, the Pentagon has deferred questions on the investigation to the Justice Department, stating that it is a criminal matter.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here