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Following the Texeira leak, I have a question which I do not see covered at all in any of the press. Has been there any investigation started into the security structure failures that led to these leaks? It is obvious that it is a systemic failure - a glorified janitor shouldn't have an access to top secret documents, and most of these documents didn't have much business to be on National Guard airbase anyway, they don't have anything to do with whatever Air Force is supposed to be dealing with. Somebody is responsible for the security on Otis Air National Guard Base - and that somebody screwed up big time. Do we know about anybody being places on leave, suspended, demoted, whatever it is? What is the usual procedure in the Army when something like this happens? How much consequences could be expected to people responsible for preventing such things from happening?
A janitor working in a top secret facility naturally has access to top secret documents, though as I understand it sometimes a janitor would have a lower-level clearance and an escort and do work at a time when such documents are supposed to be put away. But Texeira was not a custodian in the sense of "janitor;" he was a "custodian of classified documents". That means he was responsible for keeping track of the combinations of the safes holding the classified documents and changing them as required. Such a person obviously has access to the classified information.
As for why the documents were at a National Guard airbase, apparently there was some relevant expertise there. Seems weird to me too, but it's not definitely wrong.
Unfortunately, to some degree, that was Texeira.
Somebody appointed him to that position. Somebody supervised him. It's not like US Air Force command structure is Biden - Charles Q. Brown Jr. (had to look him up) - Texeira. There's probably some layers in between, and people in those layers have direct responsibility for hiring and supervising their subordinates. Which means, whoever led to the situation where Texeira had full and unsupervised access to secret documents he had no business accessing - failed at their duty. What I am interested in is who these people were and did they suffer (or will suffer) any consequences, commensurate with the degree of their failure.
Looks like he was actually a "Cyber Transport Systems journeyman"; not sure where I read he was the custodian of (physical) documents but that seems to have been wrong. He had undergone a background investigation and gotten a Top Secret clearance, and his job would have lead to full and, yes, unsupervised access to documents. He was supposed to be trustworthy enough to have such access; this is what the background investigation is supposed to determine. Clearly he wasn't, but I'm not sure why you think it was somehow obvious before the fact that he wasn't.
I thought the background checks are supposed to determine if someone could bribe/blackmail you into disclosing secrets.
That's one of the things a background check is supposed to determine, but it's much more than that, see here
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