US Intelligence Leaks; the Plot Thickens
A National Airguardsman as Patsy
[Image: a frame from Judge Napolitano interviewing Larry Johnson.]
Published: 2023-04-14
Updated 2023-04-15: Details of Teixeira arraignment and charges against him have been added.
Updated 2023-04-17: Added and article by John Helmer to sources. Updated the link to the Complaint to a better one (clearer).
Update 2023-05-01: New claims from Larry Johnson add to the patsy theory; GCHQ identified the data and leak source and informed NSA who did nothing.
This article follows on from the newsletter’s initial report. A follow on article examining the first criminal complaint, by the FBI, in connection with the leaks is also available.
A companion podcast episode is also available.
Introduction
The US Intelligence Leaks, or Spring-Offensive-Gate as I call it, is still developing and significant developments they are. If one takes a combination of the conclusions of Larry Johnson (ex-CIA) and Anthony Shaffer (ex-DIA) then the story that is being told in the media regarding the source of the leaks is a misdirection.
The legacy media narrative is provided first, follow by an alternate analysis.
Legacy Media Narrative
Based on work by Bellingcat the narrative emerged of a young man who worked at a military base publishing classified documents on a Discord server to a small collection of gamers and persons interested in military hardware.
In the recent Washington Post article the narrative is expanded using a seemingly plausible scenario. The young man created a space for discussion with a selected group, of about 25 people, mostly young, who had the interests listed above. "OG" the person who administered the group became disenchanted as he realized that the USA government was lying to the people.
It is alleged that he began by taking notes from classified documents and providing summaries, including explaining acronyms, of these documents to the group via the Discord server. He expressed frustration in lack of interest, and rather than laboring to transcribe and annotate, began to just photograph the documents instead. Sometime thereafter a group member began cross-posting the images from the small group environment into a much larger group on a different Discord server. From there cross-posting continued to other systems, eventually ending up on Twitter which is how the "leaked" documents were discovered by the legacy media.
The Arrest
The FBI have arrested a 21-year-old air national guardsman, Jack Teixeira from Massachusetts. He is alleged to be the source of at least some of the leaks which have recently emerged.
He has been arraigned before the Magistrate David H. Hennessy in the Federal Court for the district of Massachusetts in Boston and charged with the criminal offenses of:
[18 U.S.C. § 793(b) and (d)] Unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information
[18 U.S.C. § 1924] Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materia
which are charges under the now infamous Espionage Act of 1917, amended 1961.
This essentially ties a nice little bow on the saga and we can all forget about it.
Nah!
Judge Napolitano and Guests
In Sources below are three interviews by Judge Andrew Napolitano from his Judging Freedom youtube show. The guests as mentioned above are Shaffer, Johnson and Col Douglas Macgregor.
Anthony Shaffer will be known to persons who have done 9/11 research. He identified, while working for the Defense Intelligence Agency several of the "terrorist cells" before the alleged hijackings on the day and was frustrated that nothing was done with the information he provided.
During his interview with Napolitano, on the 11th, he points the finger to very high places for this leak suggesting that if it is a controlled leak it would most likely be done via an intermediary, or patsy. He suspects that the narrative to be generated from the leak is a requirement for more weaponry and/or funds for the Ukraine conflict. When asked to comment upon spokesman Admiral Kirby declaring to the press that the government has no idea who is doing this and are keeping a close eye on the situation, Shaffer responds with two counters. Firstly, given the clearance level of some of the documents they can immediately narrow the "suspects" down to around 15. Some of the documents are that highly classified. Secondly, Shaffer believes that Kirby is preparing the way for at least one more round of leaks.
Larry Johnson, a 23 year veteran CIA and State Department analyst, now retired, does not accept the narrative either. He was interviewed just before the announcement of the arrest of Teixeira becomes public and after the WaPo article including the interview with “OG”s “friend”. He believes that the second round of leaks are from a collection, a digest, of reports. Among them are two reports neither of which would ever be available at a military base:
one document is “listed as CIA Operations Center TOP SECRET” (quoting Johnson). Johnson has worked in one of these centers. He declares that no one in any USA military base anywhere will ever have had access to a document of this type/classification. They are CIA internal and may only move up the chain not sideways.
another document has a FISA classification which means it comes from the Department of Justice, which again would never be available on a military base.
These two high level classifications from different parts of the government lead Johnson to conclude that the source is from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He adds that the whole story starts with Bellingcat, a UK Intelligence cut-out and is then picked up by The Washington Post and The Guardian (UK) with closely timed articles. He believes its a media operation.
The Macgregor interview occurs just after the arrest has been made public. Macgregor begins by stating that persons who have been listening to the show, and persons like himself Johnson and Scott Ritter would be unsurprised by the contents of the classified documents. I concur, and hope that what little I've been able to do in writing on the topic would mean that you, readers, have also not been surprised.
Napolitano asks Macgregor about Defence Secretary Austin's statements made to the Senate's Armed Services Committee after the dates shown on the leaked documents. Macgregor declares that not only is Austin lying to the Senate but that around him others, like General of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley have also deliberately mislead the people and Congress. He concludes that 99% of statements by the government and echoed by the stenographic, legacy (or should that be lazy?) media are "crap".
Napolitano then introduces Seymour Hersh's most recent piece. It describes a visit to Kiev by CIA Directory Burns during which he informs Ukrainian President Zelensky that the USA knows that he and 35 Ukrainian Generals are skimming off the funds being supplied to continue the war. Zelensky then fires 10 of the 35 Generals. The others remain and Hersh's source alleges that $400 million has been stolen. Just to add insult to injury they are buying diesel fuel from Russia. (More details of the paywalled Hersh article are given by Alex Christoforou in a video, and by Dave DeCamp from Antiwar in the Sources section below.)
Napolitano had earlier shown the interview of the "friend of OG" produced by WaPo to Johnson who laughed it off hoping that their actors union card was up to date. When asking Macgregor of his opinion he identifies a couple of "red flags" and is very suspicious.
[Image: a frame from Military Summary’s 2023-04-12 report. Displayed is the situation around Artyomovsk/Bakhmut.]
Guesswork: An Alternate Analysis
So, by Larry's claims the framed leaker could not have obtained many of the documents in the latest leaks with data from the end of February and early March. We have no particular reason to believe the early leaks from January and February. But lets see if we can work that into a plausible scenario.
Lets assume that the young witness in the WaPo story is not an actor, but is real and what they are claiming is accurate even though it has obviously been rehearsed. The leaker did have some lower level classification intelligence which he was distributing via this small closed Discord server.
Assume that in parallel with this there is growing unease within some high level elements of the government who do actually know how badly the Ukraine conflict is going. Perhaps they also know that all of this war rhetoric regarding China is also a potential disaster. Next, assume that the posting to the Discord server is discovered.
NSA will have all the traffic and can verify what has been published on the Discord server to a limited distribution. The CIA/NSA with potential outsourcing to MI-6 can gain unauthorized access and not only verify but obtain usernames etc.. Theoretically, this should be done by the FBI, but CIA/NSA/MI-6 are in a different league and don't play with the FBI unless they have to.
The discovery of leaking activity, but of limited damage, still needs to be handled delicately. Higher authority would be consulted. Lets assume that the people behind the later much higher classification leaks are a part of this early consultation. They have been given a gift. Here is a way to seriously embarrass the government and place in jeopardy their insane foreign policy. They have a patsy. A very small task force involving the CIA and NSA is put together. They map out the people with access to the initial Discord server and then monitor all of them in real time, digitally. This is thoroughly legal. The USA citizens involved are potentially guilty under the now famous Espionage act, and secondly if there is at least one foreign national involved in the early small group, the NSA can legally examine all of the traffic because it involves a foreigner. Finally, the CIA has remit too, due to the foreigner. If they want access to the server they can do it or ask their friends at MI-6. No problem.
So, now this small taskforce know what is going on and who is involved. As soon as they see a cross-post from the initial to the second Discord server (which they may have done themselves) the door is open for the controlled leak. They only need to choose how to inject the data: give it to "OG", place it on the initial Discord server directly in OG's name or place it on the second server in the name of the person who made the first cross-post, or just dump it on the second Discord server. Then they need to ignite the story, and that's where Bellingcat comes in. From there its pretty easy. The data is out, the media does its thing and then all they need to do is give WaPo sufficient metadata for them to identify the "friend" and you're away. If the FBI is too stupid to work it out from the metadata which WaPo provides, then more can be handed to the FBI via other channels.
The data is out, the media have picked up the story and the patsy has been found. Even better is that the patsy is actually guilty of the lower level leaks so he "sorta deserves it anyway".
This scenario echoes a position I often come to in these “was it A or B” type discussions. The answer is yes, by which is implied a bit of both, and from which I derive my nom de plume YesXorNo.
Is there a faction high up in the intelligence/defense community which is appalled by what is happening in Ukraine and where a "spring offensive" would lead? I contend there is. We see two types, and this would be a gray scale, of people at the mid to high levels in the USA government, patriots, often conservative, who take their oath of office seriously and others who care more for career advancement and are happy to cover other peoples’ arses even when that contradicts their oath.
As mentioned in Seymour Hersh's last article, CIA Director Burns traveled to Kiev to inform Zelensky that they are aware of the level of graft which is occurring, which is to say that the more patriotic members of the high level government are aware of this too. Not only is the policy unachievable (regime change in Russia) but the mechanism (the war) is feeding corrupt oligarchs and the black market for weapons while a generation of young Ukrainian men a being killed to facilitate this evil which will not work. It is easy to understand how this may rile a conservative patriot. It is also certain that Sleepy's Joe's friends are also making money out of this, with his son Hunter's place on the board of Burisma being an early example, not to mention the rise in stock prices for the USA arms manufacturers as orders are placed to restock NATO’s drained armories.
It will be interesting to see where this goes. The corruption and policy idiocy are real. I accept Johnson's claims that there is no way in which the fingered leaker could have obtained the document with the FISA classification or the document from the CIA Operations Center at a military base. There had to be high level involvement.
This is the smoking gun.
Sources
Leaker of U.S. secret documents worked on military base, friend says, Shane Harris and Samuel Oakford, The Washington Post, 2023-04-12
Leaked Document Says US Doesn’t Expect Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks in 2023, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2023-04-12
Twenty-One-Year-Old Air National Guardsman Arrested as Suspected Leaker, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2023-04-13
US arrests suspect behind leak of Pentagon documents, Julian Borger, Manisha Ganguly and Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian (UK), 2023-04-13
From Discord to 4chan: The Improbable Journey of a US Intelligence Leak, Aric Toler, Bellingcat, 2023-04-09
'Leaks' Pinned On Russia And Other Issues With Them, b., MoonOfAlabama, 2032-04-14
Seymour Hersh: the CIA Knows Ukrainian Officials Are Skimming US Aid, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2023-04-12
THE PENTAGON PAPERS ARE THE DEATH RATTLE OF THE EMPEROR, NOT YET OF THE EMPIRE, John Helmer, Dances with Bears (his website), 2023-04-16
MORE UNANSWERED RED FLAGS REGARDING JACK TEXEIRA, Larry Johnson, his website, 2023-04-16
Teixeira Complaint, United States of America v Jack Douglas Teixeira (Case No. 23-4293-DHH), Scribd, 2023-04-14
LTCOL ANTHONY SHAFFER, London Center for Policy Research, no publication date
Larry C. Johnson, biography, Huffington Post, no publication date
Leaked Docs - What's the Truth? - Larry Johnson, Napolitano interviews Johnson, Judding Freedom, 2023-04-13
Leaker Arrested/ Ukraine Russia War Latest - Col Doug Macgregor, Napolitano interviews Macgregor, Judding Freedom, 2023-04-13
Ukraine - What Offensive can we Expect? - Tony Shaffer, Napolitano interviews Shaffer, Judding Freedom, 2023-04-11
Tucker Carlson： This will make you sick to your stomach, Tucker Carlson, Fox News, 2023-04-13
Russian fuel for Ukraine. Milley prepares Russia surrender. Hungary, Cyprus sanctions escalator. U/1, Alex Christoforou, his youtube channel, 2023-04-13
More Sources
Leaked Docs/ Leaker Arrest, Something is Very Wrong - Tony Shaffer, Napolitano interviews Shaffer, Judging Freedom, 2023-04-14
Ukraine, Russia and the Intel community - Larry Johnson, Napolitano interviews Johnson, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-01
Culture
I couldn’t resist. Note that Stealers Wheel is a Scottish band mimicking the Bob Dylan style in this song.
Stuck In The Middle With You, Stealers Wheel (from their self titled debut album release 17th November 1972), ℗ 1972 A&M Records Limited, uploaded by Universal Music Group on 2018-07-31
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The Tucker Carlson commentary was great. This will make you sick to your stomach