Pentagon leaks linked to young gun enthusiast employee – report | First Thing

Man known online as OG' said to have access to classified material and to regard intelligence services as repressive. Plus, why America's most popular flower never goes out of style'

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Good morning.

The man responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents is reported to be a young, racist gun enthusiast who worked on a military base, and who was seeking to impress two dozen fellow members of an internet chat group.

Why did he have security clearance? There is increasing evidence that the leak was not an intelligence operation by a state actor aiming to discredit the US, but more likely the consequence of a Pentagon policy of granting top secret security clearances to huge numbers of service members, civilians and contractors. The number of employees and contractors in the entire US government with top secret clearance is about 1.25 million.

What did the World Bank say? The World Bank said it could not confirm the contents of the recording, but added it was both false and absurd" to suggest that there was any connection between an entry-level hire and the multibillion-dollar capital increase.