Tag: national guard

The U.S. government has been left in an awkward position in what is believed to be potentially the worst intelligence breach in a decade, not only because the revelation made clear Washington’s deeper-than-perceived involvement in the day-to-day development of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and exposed continued U.S. spying on its allies, but also because of the U.S. government’s total unawareness of the leak despite the months-long and ever-expanding online circulation of the sensitive materials.

While a Wall Street Journal report said the secret documents, of which most content was believed by U.S. officials to be real, were first posted online in January, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Tuesday that it was only on the morning of April 6 that he was first briefed on the “unauthorized disclosure.”