By now most of America has heard about the young, enlisted U.S. Air National Guard member in Massachusetts who is the focus of the investigation concerning a leak of highly classified material. As someone who, at nineteen years old, was granted a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance with special access to the White House and other facilities I can say with certainty that the least concerning thing about this news is the Airman’s age or his job. What is concerning is what the documents exposed, that they were in public for so long, and that they probably came from much higher up.
This information was NOT simply something a junior enlisted Airman gained access to so he could show off to his friends. The clearance I was granted at nineteen I held for the next twenty-seven years. I have been in some of the most classified facilities on earth and can say with conviction that this information came from somewhere in the highest levels of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community – intentionally.
The first hurdle to jump when it comes to gaining a security clearance is to be in a coded position that requires a clearance in the first place. This Airman appears to have had the job, and the clearance followed. There are people who spend years in the military and are never granted a clearance because their job does not require it. In addition to having TS/SCI clearance, there is also the need to know. This requires what is called a “read-on” where you are allowed to be a part of special access programs or to certain types of intelligence based on the source by which it is collected. That is the SCI part of TS/SCI, and I have had access to many.
Classified information is highly partitioned and segregated at multiple levels. The information revealed in the latest leak is not something this Airman would have ever had access to without someone else first putting the information out into cyberspace. I am convinced that this information was released at the highest levels within the Department of Defense or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. How the Airman may have come by and shared the information from that point remains to be seen, but he is certainly not the source.
Our first response should not be to believe what any government agency says is true regarding this incident. The DoD and Intelligence Community have long since abdicated their credibility when speaking to the American people. The botched Afghanistan departure, for which Secretary Austin apparently has no regrets, is one example. A porous Southern Border with numerous migrants pouring across unchecked, the targeting of patriots, and many other examples are real-life demonstrations of incompetence and deceit. The concerning part is that failure of this magnitude can only be intentional, hence another reason I believe these documents were a controlled and coordinated release for a purpose.
But for what purpose? I can see a few possible reasons.
1. To provide the backdrop (excuse) to push the RESTRICT Act through Congress.1 To summarize, this bill is the Cyber Patriot Act designed to create a situation where all online activity is monitored and controlled in the United States ‘for our own national security and safety.’
2. To provide an excuse for the administration to unplug from the Ukraine conflict as the truth comes out about our taxpayer funds lining the pockets of Ukraine’s own oligarchs, the weakening of our own military due to shipping equipment to Ukraine, and potentially uncomfortable facts about the Nord Stream pipeline bombing. Not counting the fact that the timing conveniently took over the news cycle at the same time as the revelations about the money from China lining the pockets of the members of the Biden Crime Syndicate. The same Biden family who makes a habit out of scrapbooking classified documents and keeping them in a garage.
3. There is a patriot out there who wanted to get some of the truth out to the public concerning Ukraine, Israel, spy balloons, and more.
When asked if the U.S. needed to be ready for more information releases, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “We don’t know,”2 and though he may not yet know, somebody high up in this administration probably does, and their name is not Airman First Class Jack D. Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Lt Col (ret), US Army, Darin Gaub is a Co-founder of Restore Liberty, an international military strategist, foreign policy analyst, executive leadership coach, ordained Bible minister, and serves on the boards of multiple volunteer national and state level organizations. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or its components. He can be contacted at [email protected]
