A young gun enthusiast who worked on a military base is believed to be responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The man, identified only as “OG” by his internet chat group, allegedly leaked the documents in an attempt to impress his two dozen fellow members.
The Washington Post interviewed a teenage member of the group, who shared photographs and videos of OG and described his personality. The report also included a video of OG firing a large rifle at a shooting range while shouting racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera.
OG claimed to have access to classified information as part of his job on a military base, but the specific location was not disclosed.
The leaked documents contain confidential information about Ukraine’s preparations for a spring counter-offensive, US spying on allies including Ukraine, South Korea, and Israel, and tensions between Washington and allied capitals over arming Kyiv.
While there were initial suspicions that the leak was an intelligence operation by a foreign state, it turns out that this was not the case. The number of individuals across the US government with top secret clearance is approximately 1.25 million.
