(CNSNews.com) - Even some Democrats are appalled by the flagrant breach of national security, allegedly by 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, a tech employee suspected of posting top-secret documents on a gaming website for months before he was arrested on Thursday.
"There's just so much that makes me crazy about this story," Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Himes is the ranking member of the House intelligence committee.
"I mean, yes, let's talk for a second about the arrest and the story that you just ran, right? 'The New York Times' knocks on his door. I mean, I just -- you know, I've spent a lot of time around the intelligence community, a lot of time around the FBI, I spent -- you know, I have a lot of respect for them, but 'The New York Times' beat the FBI to this person, right?
"And the reason that's serious is because, what if he has suitcases full of documents and he's in the process of sort of sending them out, mailing them out, faxing them out?
“What if he hands all those documents to 'The New York Times?' Now we've got, sort of, an interesting constitutional issue. And so, you know, I'm still, as you can tell, not exactly calm about that fact.
"And then, of course, is the fact that this is apparently allegedly -- a 21-year-old kid, Air National Guardsman who was trying to impress his friends. This is not exactly Beijing and Russia's best cyber operators doing here.
"And so, clearly there's an awful lot of work, a lot of congressional oversight work we need to do to fix these systems that are constantly allowing or at least regularly allowing our secrets to get out into the wild."
Tapper noted that the U.S. intelligence agency receives billions of dollars in taxpayer funding each year, but "it really seems like...a lot of people dropped the ball here."
"Yes, that's exactly right," Himes agreed:
"You just touched on the third reason I want to light my hair on fire right now, which is, you know, again, this wasn't exactly advanced trade craft. These apparently were documents that were folded up, stuck into a pocket, photographed, and that raises all sorts of questions, right?
"You know, first of all, how was this guy able -- and this is all allegedly right, we don't know the facts yet, how was he able to print them out? How was he able -- how was he able to remove them from a secure facility?
“And as you point out, we had an unclassified briefing with the Department of Defense yesterday in which were told that the Department of Defense became aware that these documents were out in the wild on April 5. And there is reason to believe that they might have been out there for months.
"Now, in a, you know, in a world of advanced AI and, you know, ChatGPT and these incredible technological capabilities, the notion that highly classified stuff was just plain out there --being traded like, you know, baseball cards, and we didn't know about it. Again, a subject for some serious congressional inquiry."
Himes said the security process "obviously failed in a very substantial way. And that's where the Congress comes in. Our job is oversight, and you can bet we're going to be doing it."
Speaking in Ireland on Thursday, President Biden downplayed the leak of classified information, telling reporters, "Well, I — I’m not concerned about the leak because — I’m concerned that it happened, but there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence right now," the president said.
But Himes said the leaker may have harmed the U.S. government.
"I've never seen a leak like this that may, and I do emphasize may, have a real effect on the battlefield in Ukraine if, in fact, sources and methods have been compromised that could translate into dead Ukrainians that didn't need to be dead because we didn't get the process and the protection of that information right.
"And, yes, as you point out -- now, look, you know, other than within the five eyes, you know, Canada, U.K., New Zealand, et cetera, Australia, I think our allies know that we keep a track, you know, that we're interested in what they're talking about, the fact that the United States might be spying on other countries will come as a surprise to precisely nobody.
"But we rely on those countries to share their sensitive information with us. That's what makes us good at what we do.
"And I would forgive the South Koreans or the Israelis or the French or whoever from saying we may not be able to share our most sensitive information with the Americans because they can't seem to keep it out of, you know, 21-year-old's hands or ex-president's garages or people named reality winner or whatever.
"I mean, again, there's just too much of this going on that it will ultimately compromise, not just the Ukrainian battlefield, but our ability to work with our allies to keep the American people safe."