Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines called the leaking of hundreds of classified documents “deeply depressing,” but she doesn’t want the intelligence community to overreact either.
“I think we will always, in any scenario, in any incident that occurs, learn lessons once we understand what happened and ensure that we try to do a better job protecting our information moving forward,” Haines said on Monday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
MARK WARNER SAYS US SHOULD 'CLASSIFY LESS' FOLLOWING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS LEAK
The top U.S. intelligence official noted that while changes may ensue following the investigations and reviews into who has access to specific classified information, they shouldn’t do anything to limit their capabilities.
“What I think we all try to do is learn the right lessons and then not over-torque as a consequence,” she added. “What I mean by that is to try to promote better practices while at the same time not undermining our capacity to do appropriate sharing and to engage in our mission.”
U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested earlier this month and is currently facing multiple charges for removing the classified documents from a secured work environment, taking them home, and then posting the information or photos of the documents online. He allegedly posted them in a private Discord channel with men of similar age for months before another member of the group began taking the photos and posting them on other social media platforms.
The leak sent shockwaves throughout the Pentagon as it exposed U.S. intelligence, sources, and methods regarding the war in Ukraine, as well as other instances of intelligence gathered on allies, including South Korea and Israel.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has directed the Air Force inspector general to investigate the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing, which included Teixeira, while the unit has been temporarily stripped of its "intelligence mission,” the Air Force announced in a statement last week.
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“I’ve tasked our inspector general to go look at the unit and anything associated with this leak that could have gone wrong, from the point of view of implementing our policies to see what things allowed this to happen,” Kendall said during a Senate subcommittee hearing on defense appropriations last week. "We're turning on a complete review of our policies themselves within the staff to make sure our policies are adequate. And that will be illuminated by what we learned about what happened in this incident."
The Pentagon has already made some changes to who has access to certain classified information, while Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed Ronald Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, to lead the review process last week, and he has 45 days to submit his recommendations to the secretary. That deadline will likely be near June 1.