The U.S. government is continuing its search for the identity of the classified document leaker as reporting claims the photos and documents were leaked by a government employee in a Discord server, even as an alleged associate of the leaker fears his friend will be “assassinated.”
According to mainstream reporting, a government employee with access to classified materials began leaking them earlier this year. Many of the documents – captured as photographs and posted online – relate to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, and some contain allegedly fudged casualty numbers that show minimal Russian losses and staggering Ukrainian casualties.
The documents also reveal that the United States continues to spy on its allies, a practice that was questioned in the aftermath of past leaks.
While the government has not made any arrests or named any suspects in its investigation, which only began this month, the Washington Post claims to have interviewed a close associate of the leaker, who referred to his friend “OG” as a father-figure who had a Nostradomus-like ability to predict the future due to his security clearance.
Discord booth at PAX West 2018 (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Now, that associate fears that OG – who allegedly works on a military base and is somewhere in his twenties – will not be charged with a crime by the U.S. government, but instead will be held indefinitely using provisions likely created in the PATRIOT Act and the 2012 NDAA. According to the Post:
The member said he’s confident the authorities will find OG. But when they do, he won’t be charged. Instead, he believes, OG will be imprisoned without due process at Guantánamo Bay or disappeared to a “black site,” if he’s not “assassinated” for what he knows.
Despite the ostensible nationwide manhunt, the associate also reports that OG was able to create a second Discord server for his online community, and relayed that the leaker’s mental state is poor.
“He’s fully aware of what’s happening and what the consequences may be. He’s just not sure on how to go about solving this situation. … He seems pretty distraught about it,” the associate told the Post, adding that OG “seemed very confused and lost as to what to do.”
In a final message, OG reportedly told his online community to “keep low and delete any information that could possibly relate to him.”
Far from a Edward Snowden-type figure, the associate claims OG shared the classified documents to foster a brotherhood in a private Discord server that came into existence during lonely days of the Covid-19 pandemic and the accompanying government lockdowns.
Apparently drawn together by a mutual admiration for gun and self defense content on YouTube, the Discord server reportedly contained multiple foreign nationals, including individuals from Ukraine and Russia.
