WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) – A probe into the leak of secret U.S. paperwork probably would require investigators to look at those that had entry and scrutinize particulars like objects captured in photographs of the supplies, former U.S. officers instructed Reuters, as strain grows to search out the individual or group accountable.
The Division of Justice opened a proper felony probe final week after the matter was referred by the Pentagon, which is assessing the harm accomplished by what could be the most damaging launch of categorized U.S. info in years.
Reuters has reviewed greater than 50 of the paperwork, labeled “Secret” and “Prime Secret” however has not independently verified their authenticity.
Two former U.S. officers instructed Reuters that one of many investigators’ first steps could be reviewing who had entry to the handfuls of paperwork, images of which had been posted on social media platforms final month, or probably earlier.
One potential clue: various paperwork are embossed with the Joint Chiefs of Workers emblem and one doc is purportedly a each day intelligence replace for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers and the secretary of protection. This might assist investigators focus their effort, although many individuals might have had entry to those paperwork.
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Some photos additionally depict printouts of paperwork with time stamps on the high proper corners exhibiting after they had been printed.
That could possibly be a key indicator as a result of authorities categorized pc techniques maintain logs of those that view and print paperwork, mentioned Mark Zaid, a lawyer who practices nationwide safety regulation.
NOT THE ‘PERFECT CRIME’?
A former federal prosecutor, talking on the situation of anonymity, mentioned that after investigators slim the record of individuals with entry to the supplies, they might search “pen registers” that may present a historical past of outgoing cellphone calls made with out revealing their content material.
In addition they might attempt acquiring search warrants for digital cloud accounts and digital units, doubtlessly giving entry to non-public messages and paperwork.
Michael Atkinson, the U.S. Intelligence Group inspector common till 2020, mentioned investigators might be able to uncover the leaker’s digital fingerprints, given the massive variety of leaked paperwork together with the truth that they had been shared on on-line boards.
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“I believe this one will in all probability be solved,” mentioned Atkinson, who additionally labored on the Division of Justice. “This doesn’t look to me to be the right crime.”
Others are much less assured.
Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA undercover officer, mentioned that if the discharge of paperwork was a part of a misinformation effort by Russia or one other nation, these accountable might have intentionally inserted deceptive clues, together with faux time stamps.
“That is going to be a giant problem to unravel no matter occurred. We might by no means know (who leaked the paperwork),” mentioned Hoffman.
The Pentagon referred questions on the investigation to the Division of Justice and a spokesperson for the DOJ had no remark past Friday’s assertion asserting that it was investigating the leak.
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U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday mentioned the USA will “flip over each rock” to search out the supply of the leak.
GLUE, SCOPE AND CLIPPERS
There could possibly be clues within the photographs themselves. One of many leaked paperwork rests on a desk and in the appropriate nook of the image is what seems to be a bottle of Gorilla tremendous glue. On the left is a guide with a picture resembling a searching rifle scope and there may be what seems to be a pair of nail clippers on the high of the photograph.
However, as with time stamps and different particulars, investigators will should be cautious of deliberate makes an attempt to sow confusion.
U.S. officers instructed Reuters on Sunday that they haven’t dominated out the chance that the paperwork might have been doctored.
Whereas leak investigations can take months and even years, investigators face intense strain to search out the supply of this safety breach given the chance that extra paperwork could possibly be leaked.
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Officers have instructed Reuters that the breadth of matters addressed within the paperwork, which contact on the warfare in Ukraine, in addition to China, the Center East and Africa, counsel they might have been leaked by an American reasonably than an ally.
Investigators had been contemplating various theories, from somebody who misplaced the paperwork to an insider who actively needed to undermine U.S. nationwide safety pursuits, a U.S. official instructed Reuters.
White Home spokesperson John Kirby instructed reporters on Tuesday that it was “tough to know” when officers will know the origin of the paperwork.
“I believe it will be silly for anyone to guess how lengthy that’s gonna take,” Kirby mentioned.
Reporting by Idrees Ali, Jonathan Landay and Sarah N. Lynch; Modifying by Don Durfee and Lisa Shumaker
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Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.
Idrees Ali
Thomson Reuters
Nationwide safety correspondent specializing in the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Stories on U.S. navy exercise and operations all through the world and the influence that they’ve. Has reported from over two dozen international locations to incorporate Iraq, Afghanistan, and far of the Center East, Asia and Europe. From Karachi, Pakistan.
Sarah N. Lynch
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Thomson Reuters
Sarah N. Lynch is the lead reporter for Reuters protecting the U.S. Justice Division out of Washington, D.C. Throughout her time on the beat, she has lined every part from the Mueller report and using federal brokers to quell protesters within the wake of George Floyd’s homicide, to the rampant unfold of COVID-19 in prisons and the division’s prosecutions following the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
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Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings Thursday as residents salvaged what they could from their ruined homes following monstrous flash floods in Spain that claimed at least 158 lives, with 155 deaths confirmed in the eastern Valencia region alone.
More horrors emerged Thursday from the debris and ubiquitous layers of mud left by the walls of water that produced Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. The damage recalled the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourn their loved ones.
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AT LEAST 63 DEAD IN DEVASTATING FLASH FLOODS ACROSS EASTERN SPAIN, OFFICIALS SAY
Cars were piled on one another like fallen dominoes, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items all mired in mud that covered streets in dozens of communities in Valencia, a region south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast.
An unknown number of people are still missing and more victims could be found.
“Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles,” Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said early Thursday before the death toll spiked from 95 on Wednesday night.
Rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that tore through homes and businesses, sweeping away cars, people and everything else in its path. The floods demolished bridges and left roads unrecognizable.
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Luís Sánchez, a welder, said he saved several people who were trapped in their cars on the flooded V-31 highway south of Valencia city. The road rapidly became a floating graveyard strewn with hundreds of vehicles.
“I saw bodies floating past. I called out, but nothing,” Sánchez said. “The firefighters took the elderly first, when they could get in. I am from nearby so I tried to help and rescue people. People were crying all over, they were trapped.”
Regional authorities said late Wednesday that rescuers in helicopters saved some 70 people stranded on rooftops and in cars, but ground crews were far from done.
Vehicles are seen piled up after being swept away by floods in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
“Our priority is to find the victims and the missing so we can help end the suffering of their families,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said after meeting with officials and emergency services in Valencia on Thursday, the first of three official days of mourning.
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An ‘extraordinary’ deluge
Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most powerful flash flood event in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also behind increasingly high temperatures and droughts in Spain and the heating up of the Mediterranean Sea.
Human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood of a storm like this week’s deluge in Valencia, according to a rapid but partial analysis Thursday by World Weather Attribution, comprising dozens of international scientists who study global warming’s role in extreme weather.
Spain has been suffering from an almost two-year drought, meaning that when the deluge happened late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain, leading to flash floods.
The violent weather event surprised regional government officials. Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in the Valencian town of Chiva than it had in the preceding 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.”
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In Paiporta, a community of 25,000 next to Valencia city where mayor Maribel Albalat said Thursday that not fewer than 62 people had perished.
“(Paiporta) never has floods, we never have this kind of problem. And we found a lot of elderly people in the town center,” Albalat told national broadcaster RTVE. “There were also a lot of people who came to get their cars out of their garages … it was a real trap.’
Farms damaged
While the most suffering was inflicted on municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury over huge swaths of the south and eastern coast of the Iberian peninsula. Two fatalities were confirmed in the neighboring Castilla La Mancha region and one in southern Andalusia.
Greenhouses and farms across southern Spain, known as Europe’s garden for its exported produce, were also ruined by heavy rains and flooding. The storms spawned a freak tornado in Valencia and a hail storm that punched holes in cars in Andalusia. Homes were left without water as far southwest as Malaga in Andalusia.
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Heavy rains continued Thursday farther north as the Spanish weather agency issued alerts for several counties in Castellón, in the eastern Valencia region, and for Tarragona in Catalonia, as well as southwest Cadiz.
“This storm front is still with us,” the prime minister said. “Stay home and heed the official recommendation and you will help save lives.”
The search goes on amid the destruction
Over 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency rescue units joined regional and local emergency workers in the search for bodies and survivors.
“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, with a military emergency unit, told Spain’s national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.
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An Associated Press journalist saw rescuers remove seven body bags from an underground garage in Barrio de la Torre on Thursday.
Many residents in both towns had to walk long distances in sticky mud to find food and water. Many of their cars had been destroyed and the mud, destruction and debris left by the storm made some roads unpassable. Some pushed shopping carts along sodden streets while others carried their children to keep them out of the muck.
Valencia regional President Carlos Mazón on Thursday asked if Spain’s army could assist with distributing basic goods to the population.
The National Police arrest 39 people for looting on Wednesday. The Civil Guard deployed officers to stop further thefts from homes, cars and shopping malls.
Some 150,000 people in Valencia were without electricity on Wednesday, but roughly half had power by Thursday, Spanish news agency EFE reported. An unknown number did not have running water and were relying on whatever bottled water they could find.
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The region remained partly isolated with several roads cut off and train lines interrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid. Officials said it will take two to three weeks to repair that damaged line.
A man wept as he showed a reporter from national broadcaster RTVE the shell of what was once the ground floor of his home in Catarroja, south of Valencia. It looked as though a bomb had detonated inside, obliterating furniture and belongings, and stripping the paint off some walls.
The Hungarian prime minister arrived in Vienna on Thursday, where he was received by parliamentary president Walter Rosenkranz in a meeting condemned by several Austrian political parties.
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Despite criticism from other political parties, Austria’s newly elected parliament president, Walter Rosenkranz of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Vienna as his first official guest.
The controversial visit took place in the Austrian parliament’s reception room, with the entire leadership of the FPÖ, including leader Herbert Kickl, reportedly in attendance.
After the meeting concluded, Orbán had a separate, private meeting with Kickl. However, nothing was initially revealed about the content of their conversation.
Rosenkranz said the meeting had been arranged before he took office.
Other Austrian parties, including the Greens and Social Democrats, had resisted Orbán’s visit. Green party parliamentary leader Sigrid Maurer said the FPÖ views Orbán as a role model, which should be considered “an absolute warning signal.”
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FPÖ finished first in the recent Austrian parliamentary elections, garnering 29.2% of the vote in the country’s first far-right election win since World War II.
Experts say the party managed to tap into Austrian anxiety on housing and healthcare, as well as often successfully blaming migration for a host of other issues.
As is customary within Austria, the group with the highest number of votes appoints the President of Parliament – hence Rosenkranz being elected to the second-highest state office in the country last week.
Orbán will reportedly not meet with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer during the visit.
Far-right alliance in Europe
Austria’s Freedom Party and Orbán’s Fidesz party both belong to the new European far-right group Patriots for Europe.
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The party shares a deep aversion to the Green Deal, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s flagship initiative to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and have challenged the project of European integration as well as the power granted to EU institutions.
Patriots for Europe are also opposed to providing Ukraine with military equipment, question the efficiency of Western sanctions against Moscow and want to maintain close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.
It is the third-largest group in the European Parliament, boasting dozens of MEPs from countries like France, Italy and the Netherlands.
By Hannah Lang (Reuters) – The cryptocurrency industry has spent years clashing with Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration over regulatory issues, but executives expect an easier ride from Washington, regardless of who wins the White House next week. Crypto asset managers including Bitwise …