The Biden administration is scrambling to assess and contain the fallout from a major leak of classified Pentagon documents that has rattled US officials, members of Congress and key allies in recent days.
The Justice Department is investigating how the trove of highly sensitive documents, which include details about how the US spies on friends and foes as well as intelligence on the war in Ukraine, ended up on social media sites.
But, to date, little is known about who may have been responsible for the leak or how some of the nation’s most tightly guarded secrets ended up on social media sites.
The Defense Department is still reviewing the matter and has taken steps to tighten the flow of such highly sensitive documents, officials said, which are normally available on any given day to hundreds of people across the government.
The Pentagon has stood up an “interagency effort” to assess the impact of the leak, but US officials and close allies already fear the revelations could jeopardize sensitive sources and compromise important foreign relationships.
Congressional lawmakers have also expressed concerns about the apparent scope of the leak and sensitivity of the documents posted online but largely remain in the dark about what has occurred.
Both House and Senate Intelligence Committee leaders are demanding answers from the Biden administration. House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Turner is scheduled to receive a briefing on Monday and his Senate counterparts have jointly requested one as well.
Here what we know about the leak so far:
The documents appeared online last month on the social media platform Discord, according to screenshots of the posts reviewed by CNN.
The posts are photos of crumpled documents laid on top of magazines and surrounded by other random objects, such as…
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