US Department of Justice launches criminal investigation into leak of Pentagon documents

The US Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into the leak of secret Pentagon documents. This was announced by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“The case has been referred to the Ministry of Justice, which has launched a criminal investigation,” he said (cit. according to RIA Novosti).

Austin also added that briefings on the leaked documents have been held every day since April 6, when he was first informed about the incident.

On April 6, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon was investigating a leak of classified US and NATO papers detailing the state of Ukrainian forces and plans to build them up ahead of a counteroffensive. The documents talk about the schedules for the supply of weapons, the number of troops, the expenditure of ammunition, but specific information about the time and place of the start of the counteroffensive of the armed forces of Ukraine is not given.

April 7 on Twitter were published 100 US confidential documents including Ukraine, the Middle East and China. One of the slides from the materials, dated February 23, is marked as Secret/NoForn, which means that it is not intended for distribution to other countries. The anonymous 4chan forum, according to the NYT, also featured a map of the battles for Artyomovsk (the Ukrainian name is Bakhmut) and confidential slides of briefings on China, the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East. Former senior Pentagon official Mick Mulroy said the leak was a “significant security breach.”