Image of leak of secret US documents that thing led to the arrest of a National Guard member this week was posted to at least two chat rooms on the social media platform Discord, according to CNN’s review of Discord posts and interviews with its users.
The leaks began months ago on the first chat room, called “Thug Shaker Central,” which Teixeira allegedly oversees, multiple US officials told CNN. An unsealed FBI affidavit on Friday attests to this timeline.
It’s not clear exactly how photos of classified documents later appeared on a second Discord chat room, called the “End of Wow Mao Zone,” in March. But four members of Wow Mao Zone told CNN they saw another user, who goes by the name “Lucca” and does not appear to be Teixeira, reposting some classified documents to that chat room.
CNN has been unable to contact Lucca or identify them. The members of the End of Wow Mao Zone do not want to identify themselves other than the name on the screen.
Why the documents mattered to the war in Ukraine: The documents include a wide range of highly classified informationincluding wiretapping key allies and opponents, and making blunt assessments of the state of the Ukraine war.
A document revealed that the US was spying on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That’s not surprising, a source close to Zelensky said, but Ukrainian officials are deeply disappointed by the leak.
More background information: The second user associated with the distribution of classified documents, Lucca, has stature and anonymity on Discord — two things that allow documents to remain on the platform for weeks unaffected. And many users consider the documents to be fake, thinking that no one would be brazen enough to post US military secrets on the platform.
Lucca is a “respected user,” one Discord user told CNN in a text chat and expected Lucca to take down the images. But they didn’t. According to four users who spoke to CNN, many of the chat rooms are moderated very lightly and the images are maintained for weeks.
After posting the documents, Lucca would add “new press release” or something along those lines, one user added. “He will post them to get attention. It’s very normal for him to ping people,” the user said.
What Discord says: Discord is aware of Teixeira’s arrest and has cooperated with US law enforcement in the investigation, a spokesperson told CNN in a statement Thursday night.
“Our Terms of Service prohibit the use of Discord for illegal or criminal purposes, including the sharing of verifiable classified material on Discord,” a spokesperson said.
