President Joe Biden on Thursday said he is “concerned” by the recent leak of classified U.S. documents and that the Justice Department’s investigation of the leaker is “getting close” to a conclusion.
“I’m not concerned about the leakages. I’m concerned that it happened, but there was nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence,” the president said in brief remarks to reporters in Dublin during his multi-day overseas trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Asked whether he can give an update on the investigation into the leaks, Biden said it’s “getting close,” and declined to provide further details.
“I can’t right now, there’s a full-blown investigation going on as you know, with the Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department, and they’re getting close,” he said. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
Dozens of Defense Department classified documents were leaked online last month, and reveal details of U.S. spying on Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power, as well as intelligence gathering on America’s allies, including South Korea and Israel, NBC News previously reported.
NBC News obtained more than 50 of the leaked documents, many of them labeled “Top Secret,” the highest level of classification.
A senior U.S. official last week said that the government’s “working theory” is that they are likely real, although some of them could have been altered before they were posted online. The leaked documents appear to contain “sensitive and highly classified material” and pose a potentially serious risk to national security, the Pentagon has said.
The Justice Department started its own probe into the leak, a spokesperson said last week. “We have been in communication with the Department of Defense related to this matter and have begun an investigation,” said the spokesperson. “We decline further comment.”
Biden’s remarks on the leaked documents come as his administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to spot the classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks, a senior administration official and a congressional official briefed on the matter told NBC News.
Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were briefed about the leaked documents last week, administration officials said.
Officials were dismayed upon learning that the documents had been online for at least a month. “Nobody is happy about this,” the senior administration official told NBC News.
The administration is now looking at expanding the universe of online sites that intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities track, the official said.
Ghael Fobes, Dan De Luce, Carol E. Lee, Ken Dilanian and Phil McCausland contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
