(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI is visiting the homes of people who posted stories about the recently leaked Pentagon documents in an “intimidating” attempt to remove such content from the internet, according to a report from SpyTalk.
SpyTalk reported Sunday that one of its readers, former U.S. Army “information warfare expert” Paul Cobaugh, was visited by the FBI last week over an article he posted on his LinkedIn account about the Pentagon leaks in April.
The Pentagon leaks, also known as the Discord leaks, are the trove of internal Defense Department documents allegedly leaked by 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira. The documents show, among other things, that the U.S. has boots on the ground in Ukraine, that the U.S. the Biden administration spied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that the war there was going worse for Ukraine that officials were saying publicly—while shoveling more than $100 billion toward that effort.
The White House initially asked media to refrain from reporting on the leaks in April, and now the FBI is apparently making house calls to ask the same.
According to SpyTalk, the FBI visited Cobaugh’s house last Wednesday and asked him to take down an article about the leaks. Cobaugh said he complied.
“I gave him my phone and said, ‘Here, you find it—you know better how to look for it than me.’ So I gave him my phone. I don’t have anything to hide,” he told SpyTalk.
SpyTalk asked the FBI agent who visited Cobaugh’s home whether the bureau was reaching out to everyone who had re-posted photos of the Discord leaks and asking them to take them down.
“That’s correct,” the FBI agent, whose name was withheld, told SpyTalk. It was a project of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, he said.
Cobaugh said the FBI agents’ visit “scared the hell out of my wife and still does.”
“I believe it was a message of sorts,” he told SpyTalk, adding that he refuses to be intimidated.
“Me, I’m too damn old and stubborn to quit the fight for truth and integrity,” he said.
Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI counterintelligence chief, told SpyTalk that the bureau’s visit to Cobaugh’s home isn’t unusual.
“As for the FBI trying to contain further publication, even though the docs may be out there, it’s not uncommon [to investigate the continuing publication of classified documents],” Figliuzzi said. “This is particularly true when there is a pending prosecution.”
SpyTalk also suggested that the FBI specifically visited Cobaugh’s home because he is a former federal employee with security clearances. The publication explained that all federal employees are forbidden to download or even read classified documents, even if they have been widely published.
“So I’m not surprised they went to somebody who was a veteran, not just because he was likely to comply, but because they arguably had an ax that they [could hold] over his head,” former FBI agent Mike German said of the bureau’s visit to Cobaugh.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter. Meanwhile, a trial date for Teixeira has yet to be set. He remains incarcerated.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
