The FBI has found the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who allegedly leaked classified documents from the Pentagon. But should he have even been able to access these documents? Glenn's head researcher and former DoD intelligence analyst Jason Buttrill joins him to explain just how odd this situation is, how this kid could have accessed these top secret documents off the JWICS system, and whether he would have needed help: "A 21-year-old kid CAN'T do this."
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Jason joins us. Jason is the head of research for the broadcasts, that I do. And also, the -- the guy who watches over, you know, global problems that have anything to do with the military.
STU: And the guy who has the most illegal search history in the entire company.
GLENN: In the entire company.
STU: And that includes Jeffy.
GLENN: Yeah. You know, it's really scary, when you say, when you research something, and you about it by his office, sitting there, darkroom. You're like it's okay. (?) I think I'm finding some really good stuff. That's probably not the right words. Good stuff on the dark web. Anyway, Jason is here, because yesterday the FBI arrests the National Guardsmen linked to the Pentagon classified documents link. Now, I saw the pictures from the sky. Can we -- let's see if they match what I saw.
Because it didn't look like the FBI. That looked a lot like Army people.
STU: Oh, yeah. The vehicles certainly.
GLENN: The vehicles are. Now, when they were walking out, they had like four rifles.
They were all in the camo. Is that how our FBI dresses now?
Do we just -- are all norms gone? Now, I have to hand it to our FBI.
Because this is -- this could have been anybody. Anybody in the world!
They found him. They found him this quickly. Congratulations. Now, they still didn't know who leaked the Dobbs decision. And there's only 12 suspects there. But I'm sure they're working on it. I'm sure they're working on it. Now, I brought Jason in, because, Jason, you were in -- and I hate to say it, military intelligence. And you were in military intelligence. So you know this stuff.
JASON: Yeah.
GLENN: So tell us what he was accused of doing, according to the New York Times.
JASON: So there was that badge of classified documents that ended up on a Discord servers, which gamers use to talk to each other while they play games.
But it was on this Discord server, and somehow it went from the Discord server to eventually getting leaked out on to Telegram. Places like that.
GLENN: My first thought, when I saw this break yesterday, he's 21 years old, he's a National Guardsman. And he has access to these kinds of top secret documents. How is that possible?
JASON: So these kinds is very important to this story. When you look at the classified documents. And, yes, I have a copy of the classified documents. I mean, I don't have a copy of the classified documents. We didn't do! Somewhere Merrick Garland is laughing right now. Finally!
JASON: Yeah. Go, go. On these top secret documents, (?) their special access programs. Sensitive compartmentalized information. So what that means, there's top secret. And above that, if you get cleared, there's (?) you are read into certain things.
Just because you have a top secret clearance, blinds.com to be (?) in there somewhere.
You can't search for that stuff.
GLENN: Wait a minute. So he had access to the computer link?
JASON: Yeah. It's come out on the New York Times. (?) last night, the New York Times said, that he pulled this information off of something called Jay wicks. That stands for joint worldwide intelligence (?) communication system.
GLENN: Okay.
JASON: So basically what that is, that is an internet service provider. It's like, if you have internet (?)
GLENN: So it's -- it's a secure line.
JASON: Exactly.
GLENN: It's not a machine or anything. You plug your computer into a secure line.
JASON: Exactly. You can call on it. You can send email on it. Same as he pulled it off Jay wicks. It's like, Glenn, if you have (?) Verizon (?) can I have a little more context there. Was he surfing for it on the indecenter pap so a Jay wicks is just a system.
GLENN: So (?) candy assassination. (?) and it pops up the information. Classified details in Ukraine.
JASON: No. No, oops glycolytic some context. (?)
GLENN: Oh, they're already here.
JASON: Let's look out there.
STU: They park out front. They're just kind of outside.
JASON: I have a fast vehicle.
GLENN: I'm auto record saying this. I have nothing to do with this. (?) no.
Jason has worked for me for years. And has never, ever -- not that you have a bunch of stuff. But you have never divulged any kind of classified information, in any aspect of anybody's life.
JASON: And also the system is designed, so that I really can't. The system is designed, so that a 20-year-old enlisted kid can't get his hands on everything and anything.
It's designed that way. But what you were describing, going to (?) Intel link is basically, that's the internet, right?
Or that's basically the computers that are all linked together. I guess it's more better to describe it as an Intranet. There's a place to click on. (?)
GLENN: Is there a Wikipedia?
JASON: There is. There is a Wikipedia. It's called intel pedia. That's for top secret nerds to build (?) wait. So will this National Guardsman. He is with the (?) he is 21 years old.
Would we have access to intel pedia?
JASON: Yes. He would be able to access intel pedia. I had a top secret (?) I would be able to go into the skiff. The facility where this stuff is at.
And I could get on to one of these terminals. That's hooked up to Jay wicks. And I could go into Intel pedia,if I want to.
The information is broad there. It's a bunch of nerds (?)
GLENN: It's not these documents.
JASON: No, no, no. It's not. Here are the locations of every (?) that would be SEI or sap.
Meaning, you have to be read into that. You have to have a special login to send that to and from terminals on the Jay wicks. Oops I don't know. The Capitol Police were disgorge just happened to walk out on the room, and it was there on the screen. Any way to get and recently
Could he print it or take a picture of it?
JASON: He could take a picture of it on the computer. Bought that's not what happened. He printed it (?)
GLENN: You couldn't print it off in the skiff.
JASON: You could. But there would be a record that somebody printed that off in the skiff.
STU: One of the many ways they were able to identify this guy supposedly, was that he printed them off, brought them home, put them on the counter. And you could see, it was the same (?) the counter in his kitchen.
GLENN: Right. And there was a reflection of the room and things like that. Again, can't find the secretary of one of the 12 justices that leaked that.
STU: No. It's impossible. Oops found out athat he had the reflection of his furniture in his room.
JASON: See, this is the way the system worked back when I was in. I heard they were trying to modernize the Jay wicks system. (?)
GLENN: Oh, okay. (?) just leave it open.
JASON: Right. Well, I was thinking, from what they were saying, they were trying to make it more restrictive from when I was in. It was going to be cloud-based. (?) what really irritated me about the New York Times piece last night, is they didn't ask any of these questions. They were given an acronym.
And even the acronym meant, just pull off Jay wicks.
GLENN: Okay.
Hang on. Why would the New York Times feel the need to ask the government any questions?
JASON: Especially when they were probably given it.
GLENN: We will ask the questions here.
They seemed to have trusted their government sources for everything. And been burned every time, as we find out it's false. Why would -- these questions.
JASON: Yeah. It was almost (?) they were given a piece of paper, and print this. That's the way it felt to me. If I'm at the New York Times, and actually curious about getting to the bottom of this. (?) okay. He got it off Jay wicks.
Where was it at in Jay wicks? Was it in an email, and-something (?) was he reading someone's email?
Did someone send him an ice mail, and his information was on at a?
GLENN: Definitely not an (?) FBI agent. Whatever I say, not an FBI agent.
Justice Department has nothing to do with it.
JASON: I will say (?) I'll just put that out there.
STU: So does the DOJ.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
JASON: I'm just wondering. (?)
GLENN: And have you come back. Have you figured out any way that this could be done by this kid.
What are the most likely scenarios?
Because if you're telling us, you can't just log in. And he wouldn't have the ability to just log in, and get this kind of information.
What would he have to have? Or how is the most likely way it would have happened?
Back with Jason here in 60 seconds.
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Now, they're saying, this guy is stationed at the National Guard base, as a cyber transport systems journeyman. What the hell is that?
JASON: I have no idea. That's Air Force.
GLENN: He held the highest level security clearance, granted by the government, to review top secret information.
JASON: SEI. Top secret as he EI.
GLENN: So he would have (?)
JASON: He would be able to look at that.
GLENN: But he wouldn't be able to search for it or look for it.
It would have to have been -- he would have to know where it was. Because I'm guessing. I'm trying to understand this -- in people terms. But I don't know anybody who has actually been on the dark web, except you.
So when you own the dark web (?) you have to know what you're looking for, right?
JASON: People have built web pages on the dark web (?)
GLENN: And is there a list of links on this thing?
JASON: Kind of like the Intranet. So he could go on that. Look on Intel pedia,if he wanted to. But (?) there's no search function for that. So you couldn't just be like, hydrogens going to go on this site on (?) Jay and moaning me before, what's the most likely scenario? Either someone else's email is up. I'm just theorize oops (?) which would be highly unlikely, right?
JASON: Unless they're completely incompetent, which is a possibility. If so, I want to know about that, someone should ask that. Or someone could have sent him an ICE email that he shouldn't have received. That could be possible as well.
GLENN: Would there be a record of that?
JASON: It should be. There will be a record of that.
GLENN: So when they arrest him, and they're printing him as the guy, is there any way for that to be true, that he is the only one involved in this? As far as getting the information.
JASON: It's possible he was the only one involved in wanting to steal this information. So like I said, if somebody else's mistake allowed him to do this. But that needs to be looked into.
So that's one option. The other option was someone was feeding him information. I want to know who that person is as well. That is the only two scenarios that I can think of, that makes sense.
The way classified information makes sense. It's set up to where a 21-year-old kid can't do it.
There has to be somewhere, where there are mistakes, where protocols can't be followed.
We have to know about that.
GLENN: So here's the thing that bothered me from the get-go. When we know who this guy is. Yesterday, when we said, we know who that guy is, but we won't tell you who it is.
And the opening paragraph of the story was, he's a guy who loves God and guns. And he's with a bunch of guys on the internet with God and guns.
And I thought, wow. Wow. That's an interesting -- what a great, sweet deal. And that story was followed by Biden saying, this is why we need to have more monitoring of all websites.
JASON: Off a. That's coming.
GLENN: Right (?) so, I mean, I would have never said five years ago, eight years ago, would have never said, this smells like a setup. This smells like -- only because of everything else that's going on.
For instance, we got the guy who discovered the pipe bomb. Okay?
The first guy that discovered the January into just. Cop. Okay? He's been arrested. He's going to jail.
Why? Because he told someone, hey, man. You should remove that from Facebook.
Well, I know people who know people who are at January 6th. And they were like, what are you doing? Don't post that. Take that Facebook. Not that they're doing anything.
But when is it a crime when you say, Newsweek?
We haven't found the guy who left the bomb. But the guy who discovered -- the cop who discovered the bomb. And then later told somebody else, hey, you should take that off of Facebook.
He's arrested and going to jail.
Now, as a movie writer, I would say, that that's a great setup for, he knows something. Shut him up.
Am I wrong? As a movie writer.
Am I wrong on that.
JASON: No, nn, no. But look how (?) everyone mobilized to figure this out, in what, a matter of days?
GLENN: Days. Days.
JASON: And it was the media that actually broke it. The media figured it out before the fed did, that's what it felt like.
GLENN: And that's weird. Because that would be internal sources. And we know what internal sources have fed us through the media before. Nothing, but lies.