Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Kash Patel stated on Friday that even though Jack Teixeira worked in information technology for an Air Force intelligence wing, he would not have had legal access to the classified information he is accused of leaking on a Discord server.
Patel described several additional means for Teixeira to access the information on Breitbart News.
“Patel said, first, the suspected leaker, Jack Teixeira, would not have had access to the information without someone within the Department of Defense (DOD) or the intelligence community giving it to him, providing it to him, or telling him it should be put out there. “It’s just not possible,” he said.
“You can be the biggest IT person in DOD, and you are still compartmented off of the actual information. Almost never does an IT person need to know, as we say, the substance of the intelligence. Their job is to provide the secure informations systems around it to protect any disclosures.”
ABC News also published an article on Saturday that, surprisingly, referenced defense officials who concurred that Teixeira’s job description does not constitute “need to know.”
“Defense officials told ABC News that having a TS-SCI clearance is typical for Air Force personnel who in order to provide IT support might need access to classified spaces, computers and networks so they could do their jobs.
But the fact that you have a clearance does not mean you have access to everything at that level. That access is based on your “need to know” the information for your job.”
According to others, Teixeira worked on the computer systems within a SCIF, so he may have had access to these documents, as well as the President’s Daily Brief and the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) work product. According to Patel, there is no way:
“This is crazy sensitive stuff,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of people who have a Top Secret/SCI clearance don’t have access to this information. And me, as the former deputy DNI and chief of staff of the DOD and publisher of the [Presidential Daily Brief], with the highest security classification, knows that, literally, there is not a lot of people in the U.S. that have access to this kind of intel. It’s done for a reason. So this doesn’t happen.”
“The amount of intelligence they got…Somebody’s giving them that type of documentation. It’s just not readily available,” he said about the reporting. “Where did they get that from? That doesn’t come from anyone who doesn’t have direct access at the end in the United States.”
Patel explained that the compartmentalization of information is in addition to the classification level and “need to know” basis. While the siloing of information within a corporation is undesirable, it is vital to military intelligence.
Recent speculation suggests that Teixeira may not have acted alone:
“A possibility that needs to be considered is that Teixeira was given many of the documents by someone else who did have access to them, and who wanted them to be leaked.”
Given the methodical nature of the disclosures, Patel considers this possibility to be highly probable.
“Whether he’s in IT or not, is irrelevant. The way it was produced, the way it was put out there — pages, printed photographs taken, published online — that is a methodical way of releasing classified information illegally,” he said.
“I think he’s definitely working with other people in DOD or the intel space to get this information out. This is an Assange-style operation. This kid — no offense to him — at 21 years old, cannot put out this five-months, unlawful disclosure of sensitive intelligence,” he said.
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Several parts of the government’s complaint against Teixeira have been highlighted by ABC News as problematic given the claim that Teixeira did this for months with no one knowing. As was reported lat week, a number of stories about Teixeira were stealth-edited on both Wednesday and Thurday of last week. According to an article from NBC News, officials had been monitoring Teixeira for some time, before it was changed to say that they were “onto him.” Then that paragraph was deleted in its entirety. CONTINUE READING…
