So maybe Jack Teixeira, a lowly 21-year-old enlisted man in the Massachusetts Air National Guard still living at his mom’s house, thought it was wicked cool to share some info he had seen at work at a Cape Cod Air Force base with his online pals, most of whom are kids living in their own moms’ houses.
That’s fine for this pathetic character to build himself up to impress some teen losers in their “Thug Shaker Central” chat group on Discord, but that he used stolen highly classified national defense documents ain’t cool and we trust that young Airman Teixeira will soon enough be serving in a different uniform at a different kind of federal facility.
The guys bonded online over their shared love of guns and stuff like that and Teixeira allegedly committed serious federal felonies, not for money like a traitor selling out his country or because his politics were opposed to Washington’s actions or even to be a whistleblower exposing what he thought was wrong, but to show off to his internet pals.
And for that, the national security of the United States and our allies, like the brave Ukrainians trying to hold off the invading Russians, have been put at risk. How stupid is this?
Teixeira and his lawyers will become very familiar with 18 U.S.C. 793, also known as the Espionage Act. The unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information is a serious offense that can bring 10 years in prison for each document leaked, no matter the motivation, be it money from the Kremlin or an online bragging session.
Now that the damaging leaker has been found, the Pentagon must examine how it vets the people who are given access to such sensitive secrets. The feds only realized that something was amiss when one of the “Thug Shaker Central” guys, be it Teixeira or another sad case, let the secrets spill beyond their little group. Are there other such secret thieves out there who are being more careful in covering their tracks?
