The FBI is investigating where leaked US intelligence documents were printed

By Evan Perez, Katie Bo Lillis and Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) – The FBI is targeting a U.S. government office where it believes leaked U.S. intelligence documents about Israel's preparations for a possible attack on Iran were printed, a U.S. official and another source familiar with the matter told CNN .

FBI investigators working with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have narrowed the focus of the investigation in recent days, concentrating on locations where the documents could have been printed before they were leaked last Friday. In the wake of leaks of confidential documents in recent years, the federal government has increased monitoring of when employees access and print confidential documents.

According to two sources familiar with U.S. intelligence, the two Israel-related documents posted on social media last week were publicly available intelligence products. But at least one appears to have been scanned from an officially printed information book. Investigators have been working to determine where the documents were printed and who had access to them. The circle of people who printed these pages would be relatively small; Sources said – an important starting point for investigators.

U.S. officials said it was not so much what was described in the documents that was concerning, but rather the fact that they were leaked at all; The breach has been simmering in the background of national security circles in Washington all week.

The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to “act quickly in the investigation … and take immediate action to hold every single person involved fully accountable.”

“If anyone in the U.S. government entrusted with America's most private secrets is found to be involved, those individuals must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Sens. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, wrote in a letter to Wray obtained by CNN.

The senators demanded that the FBI provide an update on the investigation within 15 days and “immediately” notify relevant congressional committees if the intelligence community notifies the Justice Department criminally over the leak.

The nature of the leaked documents suggests they were widely available to people with top-secret security clearances throughout the intelligence community, the Defense Department, other parts of the U.S. government and the country's closest allies, Warner and Rubio wrote.

The documents, dated Oct. 15 and 16, began circulating online Friday after they were posted on Telegram by an account called “Middle East Spectator.” They are marked top secret and indicate that they are only visible to the US and its “Five Eyes” allies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

One of the documents, purportedly compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, states that the plans involve Israel transporting munitions.

Another NGA document containing information from the National Security Agency describes Israeli Air Force exercises with air-to-surface missiles, which are also believed to be in preparation for an attack on Iran. CNN does not quote or show the documents directly.

While it is tacitly accepted that the US spies on even its allies, publicly disclosing American surveillance of Israel risks damaging relations at a time when the US is desperately trying to end the series of interconnected conflicts in which Israel is currently embroiled.

A major U.S. intelligence leak last year also strained U.S. relations with allies and partners, including South Korea and Ukraine, after then-21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira posted top-secret information on the social media platform Discord .

In this case, the FBI was able to act quickly to identify Teixeira, who left an electronic trail that helped investigators quickly narrow down their angle. Texeira is now serving a 16-year prison sentence for the leak, and the Pentagon has since said it has restricted the number of people who have access to certain documents.

The CNN Wire
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