Washington on Tuesday vowed to "turn over every rock" to find the potential source of leaked "secret" documents, which has sparked fears of national security.
What Happened: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Pentagon would investigate the recent purported leak of classified documents until the source is found.
“We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” Austin said, according to remarks released by the Defense Department.
This came after dozens of documents, labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret,” appeared on social media sites in March that supposedly revealed details of the military capabilities of some NATO and its allies.
Austin added that the defense department is aware that papers were published between Feb. 28 and March 1, although it was uncertain if any additional documents had been made available online earlier.
“These are things that we will find out as we continue to investigate,” Austin added.
Why It Matters: According to reports, top-secret data concerning the Ukrainian military's strengths and weaknesses and other documents mentioning the presence of Western special forces personnel in the nation were recently uploaded on the social media platform Discord.
The leak of recent secret documents comes as one of the most damaging releases of U.S. government information since the publication of thousands of documents on WikiLeaks in 2013.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns called the leaks “deeply unfortunate.” However, he gave no details about Pentagon and the Justice Department's “quite intense” investigation.
“We need to learn lessons from that, as well, about how we can tighten procedures,” Burns said.
Read Next: Putin Ally Orders US Envoy To Visit Parliament To Talk About Biological Labs In Ukraine
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