Justice Department opens criminal investigation into leaked Pentagon documents that “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material”

The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the leak of documents that “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” a Defense Department spokesperson stated Sunday. The Pentagon was once additionally nonetheless assessing the validity of the documents, the spokesperson stated.

“An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our Allies and partners,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh stated in a remark. “Over the weekend, U.S. officials have engaged with Allies and partners and have informed relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction about the disclosure.”

A report marked “top secret” that displays the day by day disposition of forces in Ukraine was once leaked and started appearing up on social media, a U.S. reliable showed Friday.

The reliable stated that any person it seems that took an image of the report and posted it at the social media platform Telegram prior to it was once then picked up on Twitter. 

Several slides pertaining to the conflict in Ukraine had been posted to Telegram on Thursday, and, whilst the documents gave the impression unique, U.S. officers warned a few of them gave the impression to were altered. One of the slides confirmed an estimate of 16,000-17,500 Russians killed in motion, however U.S. protection officers have publicly stated that Russia has suffered over 200,000 casualties. 

The documents that had been posted also are greater than a month previous. 

Several extra documents purporting to duvet different portions of the sector, now not simply Ukraine, persevered to leak on Friday. These documents seem to display tensions with South Korea over army help, the U.S. taking into account leaning on Israel to supply deadly help to Ukraine and information at the Wagner mercenary staff, in accordance to the New York Times, which first reported the leak. 

—David Martin and Eleanor Watson contributed reporting.