For the first time, a direct link has been confirmed between Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of the largest leak of government documents in US history, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: Jolt in WikiLeaks Case: Feds Found Manning-Assange Chat Logs on Laptop.

A government digital forensic examiner retrieved communications between accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning and an online chat user identified on Manning’s computer as “Julian Assange,” the name of the founder of the secret-spilling site that published hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables.

Investigators also found an Icelandic phone number for Assange, and a chat with another hacker located in the U.S., where Manning says he’s responsible for the leaking of the “Collateral Murder” Apache helicopter video released by Wikileaks in spring 2010.

Until Monday’s revelation, there’s been no reports that the government had evidence linking the two men, other than chat logs provided to the FBI by hacker Adrian Lamo. Assange is being investigated by a federal grand jury, but has not been charged with any crime as publishing classified information is not generally considered a crime in the U.S. But if prosecutors could show that Assange directed Manning, that could complicate Assange’s defense that WikiLeaks is simply a journalistic endeavor.