The gamers behind a leak of state secrets

For the past week, the world has been transfixed by a massive leak of top-secret Pentagon documents. Today, we hear directly from one of the teenagers who was part of the Discord channel where it all started, and get inside the head of the alleged leaker.

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On Thursday, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was arrested by the FBI in the investigation into leaks of hundreds of pages of classified military documents to a Discord group of friends and acquaintances. 

Today on “Post Reports,” we hear from one of the teenagers who was part of that online group and get insight into why someone with a security clearance and a position in the U.S. military might leak these documents.

As national security and intelligence reporter Shane Harris explained, usually when people leak information it’s because they want to expose wrongdoing by the government, or they think a crime is being committed. But his source said the alleged leaker is not a whistleblower.

“I've never encountered an instance when someone was releasing classified information because he wanted to impress a bunch of teenagers,” Harris said.