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Intelligence Gossip & A Leak Postmortem

Two weeks after a stunning and embarrassing intelligence breach, official Washington is finally coming to terms with the reality of what got out, what might follow, and why this keeps happening.

The emerging consensus seems to be that Airman Jack Teixeira’s leak, while plenty damaging, could have been far worse.
The emerging consensus seems to be that Airman Jack Teixeira’s leak, while plenty damaging, could have been far worse. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/AFP
Julia Ioffe
April 18, 2023

The initial response to Airman Jack Teixeira’s alleged leak of highly classified documents was, as one government source told me, “Ho. Ly. Shit.” Every day, a new revelation—that the U.S. was spying on its ally South Korea, that the Pentagon had doubts about the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, that the U.A.E. was cozying up to Russia as America pulled out of the Middle East—exploded from a trove of highly classified documents that had been hanging out on a server for video-gamers. Journalists dubbed it the biggest intelligence breach since WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.