Senators: Leak Briefing ‘Stunning,’ ‘Unacceptable’

Senators briefed on the Pentagon classified documents leak Wednesday were stunned by the lack of security for highly sensitive classified intelligence, along with the poorly run briefing by senior Biden administration officials.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., denounced the briefing by National Intelligence Director Avril Haines and other officials as a “s*** show,” NBC News reported.

“I didn’t get a very good explanation of how this could happen,” Graham said. “I’m just as confused now as I was before the briefing.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member, was also concerned about the Biden administration’s handling of the classified material along with the investigation — which found the leaker before the Justice Department arrested him.

“I think it’s stunning that the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies found out about it primarily from the press,” Rubio, R-Fla., said, the Washington Examiner reported. “It’s unacceptable. And I’m not sure, at least in the time I was in there, I certainly wasn’t satisfied with any plans they have in place to prevent this from happening in the future.”

The Justice Department arrested and charged Massachusetts Air Force National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, 21, with the dissemination of highly classified government secrets earlier this month, and the Senate received the briefing on the information and data breach Wednesday.

“This guy was primarily an IT guy,” Rubio told reporters in a clip shown on Newsmax‘s “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE.” “That’s what he was, and for an IT person to have access to all this in a way and a format that he could disclose it in the way he did, that it was sitting out there for so long — the impact of the situation in Ukraine is not insignificant.”

The Democrat chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee was left with more questions after the briefing, too.

“I think there are a whole host of questions,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.. “From access to internal security controls to making sure how we really make sure continuous vetting in an internet-driven age actually can spot anomalies.”

The intelligence officials’ briefing was as scattered as it was inept for having been exposed by a 21-year-old leaker, according to Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

“I would, by and large, typify it as bureaucratic gobbledygook,” Johnson said, according to NBC.

Also, the Biden administration had tried to downplay the leak, but senators said that exposed the ineptitude even further.

“I was disappointed when the Biden administration came out at the earliest breaking news on this that it was no big deal because this is a big deal,” Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., told Fox News. “We need to get to the bottom of it.

“We need to know exactly what documents were out there, which ones were doctored for Russian disinformation, and what’s going to be the process going forward to make sure that there is more control on this by the Department of Defense and the Department of State going forward.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is still downplaying the issue of the age of the leaker arrested, suggesting age should not matter, but even those who caucus with Democrats said the young age makes matters worse.

“My principal question is, How in the world did a 21-year-old National Guardsman have access to this level of top secret information?” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told CNN. “TS/SCI: That’s just about the highest classification. That means there are people, for example, in the CIA that can’t even see it.

“This young man allegedly, apparently, was not an intelligence analyst or a member of the intelligence community. He was a technician running the network. So, the question is, Can you keep the network running without having access to the content on the network, or are there ways to secure it?

“You’re only supposed to be able to see that information if you have a need to know it, in some operational sense. So, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a really serious breach, and it also shows a serious gap in the structure of our intelligence organization.”