Urgent investigations.
Very urgent
investigations are underway into the leak
of classified Pentagon documents
exposing U.S.
intelligence on its adversaries
and its allies.
Defense officials acknowledge
they're still assessing
the scope
and the scale of the leak and the damage.
CNN senior
national security correspondent
Alex Marquardt is working
the story for us.
He's here with us right now.
How aggressively are officials working
to get to the bottom of this?
U.S.
officials, Wolf, tell us
that they are taking
this extremely seriously.
The Pentagon
saying today
that they're working around the clock.
This is clearly the most significant leak
of classified documents in years.
And it is particularly worrisome
because the information contained in
these documents is so recent.
And because these documents appear
to come from the U.S.
military, it is the Department of Defense
that is taking the lead in terms
of trying to figure out
what happened
here, how these documents were leaked
and put online.
The Department of Justice
has launched
their own criminal investigation
because these are
the classified documents
that were posted online.
But there is now,
we are told, an interagency process.
So agencies from across the U.S.
federal government,
they're coming together
to try to figure out the scale
and the scope of the damage
being led
by the Department of Defense,
trying to figure out
what in terms of U.S.
national security was harmed,
but also how allies were affected.
But, Wolf, the Pentagon
admitting today
that four days
after these documents
came to light, weeks
after
these documents were first posted online,
there is still a lot
that they don't know.
They don't know
who who took these out
of any kind of secure space,
who posted them online,
how they were leaked,
and how many more are out there.
So this is something
that they are obviously digging into.
It is something that they are
they're trying to figure out.
They want the answers.
Allies want answers
and congressional oversight
committees want answers.
We know that the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees
have asked for briefings.
And today
the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee
got one and said
that it is very concerning
what is in these documents.
I'm sure they're very,
very worried about it.
Alex, thank you very, very much.
Alex Marquardt reporting for us.
Want to get some more analysis
right now from the former
director of U.S.
National National Intelligence,
James Clapper.
He's a CNN national security analyst.
General Clapper,
thanks so much for joining us.
How worried are intelligence officials
tonight about the compromised
sources and methods?
Well, Wolf, that's
always a concern in an instance
like this,
when whenever
you have a breach
of sensitive classified information and
it is early in this.
And so we don't know
if there are other similar
caches of classified information
posted elsewhere.
And social media.
And unfortunately,
there is a history of this
in this country.
So we do have a basis
for some historical comparison.
And the one
previous instance
that comes to my mind
most readily,
of course,
is the revelations of Edward Snowden,
which came out
publicly almost ten years ago
in June of 2013.
From what I have seen again, I,
I always stress
I don't have any inside baseball here.
It would appear to me, though, that the
this is not as serious a breach,
at least from what we know publicly
so far.
As was the case with Edward Snowden.
The volume and technical detail
of what he revealed
far more damaging over the long term
than this appears to be.
A lot of this is current
data, current
intelligence,
which over time will age off.
I've taken a closer look, a close
look at some of these leaked documents.
And one thing
that jumped out at me immediately
was the new light
they shed on us spying on friendly
countries friendly
allies,
including, for example,
South Korea, Israel and Ukraine.
How much does this harm
those key relationships?
Well, it does so temporarily.
And we had
exactly the same thing happened
because of Snowden's revelations where,
you know, I'm shocked they're
spying here.
And it was revealed that the U.S.
spies on both foes and friends.
Well, everybody does that.
Nations behave
and conduct such activities
when it is in their national interests.
Now, in my case,
I had some pretty tough meetings
with counterparts
in the immediate aftermath
of the Snowden revelations.
But most nations who deal with us
in the intelligence realm
realize how important
that relationship is,
and we'll get by the temporary setback
and get on with business.
So, yeah, it's temporary.
On a temporary basis.
It's awkward, embarrassing, hard
to deal with, but over the long term,
I don't think it's going to do
a lot of damage.
We shall see.
James Clapper, thank you very, very much.