Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown appeared before the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee Tuesday and the first question wasn’t about funding, but instead about Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, who is charged with leaking classified documents.

At Senate Approps Committee for Department of the Air Force, first question is about the airman who allegedly leaked classified info to Discord. Not something Kendall/Brown expected to be dealing with a week ago….

— Aaron Mehta (@AaronMehta) April 18, 2023

Chair Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) asked:

“How could this guardsman take this information and distribute it electronically for weeks, if not months, and nobody knew about it?”

That’s a question that’s been asked since the leak was first reported, and a topic under much more discussion since the public learned more about Teixeira’s age and job information on the day of his arrest.

From the Associated Press:

For top secret information across the military, there’s supposed to be accountable control officers who are responsible for recording active top secret documents and ensuring they have been either properly secured or disposed of, such as through a shredder or by burning them.

And, the intelligence unit to which Teixeira was assigned “is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission,” according to a statement from the Air Force.

Pending further review, “The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission. The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force,” the service said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In addition, the Air Force is conducting a service-wide review of how each command handles classified information, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown told members of subcommittee.

Brown seemed to downplay the notion that there was a systemwide problem or even a unit-wide problem, saying:

“He had access to some aspects based on his job as a cyber administrator. He took advantage of that access.”

However, Kendall told Congress that he has directed the Air Force Inspector General to look at “anything associated with this leak that could have gone wrong” at the 102nd Intelligence Wing. That’s in addition to a military-wide review ordered by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and an investigation by the House Armed Services Committee into the matter.