Documents bearing classified markings, some top secret, appeared on the social media and messaging platform Discord as early as March. The documents contain a range of highly classified information, including intelligence on the war in Ukraine and how the United States is spying on its adversaries and key allies. CERL Executive Board Emeritus James Clapper joined CNN to weigh in on the scope and scale of the leak.

Lt. Gen. Clapper (ret.) is an emeritus member of the CERL Executive Board. He served from 2010 – 2017 as the Director of National Intelligence. In that position, he led the United States intelligence community and served as the principal intelligence advisor to the President. Previously, Clapper served in two administrations as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, where he was the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense on intelligence, counterintelligence, and security matters for the Department. In this capacity, he was also dual-hatted as the Director of Defense Intelligence for DNI. Read his bio here.