Marjorie Taylor Greene has defended the Air National Guardsman arrested by the FBI for allegedly leaking national security documents.
The far-right Republican lawmaker took to Twitter to show her support for Jack Teixeira who she lauded for being “white, male, christian and antiwar” – although she referred to him as “Jake Teixeira”.
Authorities raided the Massachusetts home of the 21-year-old who worked in cyber security for the Guard and took him into custody on Thursday.
Hundreds of pages of classified military intelligence have been shared with an online gaming group before becoming public in a string of disclosures last week.
But that did not stop the controversy-courting Georgia congresswoman from leaping to his defence, while also getting his first name wrong.
“Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more,” she tweeted.
“Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
Following the arrest, Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared at the DOJ to confirm that the suspect had been taken into custody “without incident.”
Mr Garland said that the suspect was being investigated for the alleged “unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defence information” and that he would make his first court appearance at the US District Court for Massachusetts.
The so-called “Pentagon Papers”, widely shared and leaving many in Washington ashen-faced with embarrassment, have yet to be officially authenticated but appear to contain details on deeply sensitive matters pertaining to national security and foreign affairs.
The slides of photographed files that were made public include detailed battlefield maps from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the alarming suggestion that the US believes Kyiv will soon run out of missiles for its air defence systems, in addition to awkward revelations about America’s attitude towards many of its allies around the world, including the UK, South Korea, Egypt, Israel and the UAE.
Precisely how many documents were leaked is not known, with estimates varying from 50 into the hundreds.
